Tobias C. Vogt

The advantages of demographic change after the wave: fewer and older, but healthier, greener, and more productive?

Population aging is an inevitable global demographic process. Most of the literature on the consequences of demographic change focuses on the economic and societal challenges that we will face as people live longer and have fewer children. In this paper, we (a) briefly describe key trends and projections of the magnitude and speed of population aging; (b) discuss the economic, social, and environmental consequences of population aging; and (c) investigate some of the opportunities that aging societies create. We use Germany as a case study. However, the general insights that we obtain can be generalized to other developed countries. We argue that there may be positive unintended side effects of population aging that can be leveraged to address pressing environmental problems and issues of gender inequality and intergenerational ties.

The importance of regional availability of health care for old age survival - Findings from German reunification

BackgroundThis article investigates the importance of regional health care availability for old age survival. Using German reunification as a natural experiment, we show that spatial variation in health care in East Germany considerably influenced the convergence of East German life expectancy toward West German levels.MethodWe apply cause-deleted life tables and continuous mortality decomposition for the years 1982–2007 to show how reductions in circulatory mortality among the elderly affected the East German catch-up in life expectancy.ResultsImprovements in remaining life expectancy at older ages were first seen in towns with university hospitals, where state-of-the-art services became available first.ConclusionOur results suggest that the modernization of the health care system had a substantial effect on old-age life expectancy and helped to significantly reduce circulatory diseases as the main cause of death in East Germany.

Linking Income, Transfers, and Social Support in an Agent-Based Family Exchange Model

The positive relationship between income and old-age survival is well established. It is, however, less clear whether wealthier individuals live longer because they can afford certain goods and services not available to people with lower incomes, or because of indirect factors. This project investigates the role of intergenerational exchange in the relationship between income and mortality. In the previous literature on the link between income and longevity, this factor has seldom been analysed. We develop an agent-based model to examine the exchange relationship in a two-generational family. In the model, older parents use increases in their pension income as intergenerational transfers to younger family members, and receive emotional or functional support in return. Taking advantage of the natural experiment of the German reunification, we estimate our model using realistic demographic, economic, and time use data. Our results imply that intra-familial resource exchange is beneficial for both the health of older parents and the living conditions of adult children in times of economic uncertainty. The findings therefore suggest that increases in pension income may affect old-age survival, both directly through the amenities elderly people can buy with the additional income, and indirectly through intergenerational transfers that incentivise adult children to provide support to their parents.

The German East-West Mortality Difference: Two Crossovers Driven by Smoking

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, mortality was considerably higher in the former East Germany than in West Germany. The gap narrowed rapidly after German reunification. The convergence was particularly strong for women, to the point that Eastern women aged 50–69 now have lower mortality despite lower incomes and worse overall living conditions. Prior research has shown that lower smoking rates among East German female cohorts born in the 1940s and 1950s were a major contributor to this crossover. However, after 1990, smoking behavior changed dramatically, with higher smoking intensity observed among women in the eastern part of Germany. We forecast the impact of this changing smoking behavior on East-West mortality differences and find that the higher smoking rates among younger East German cohorts will reverse their contemporary mortality advantage. Mortality forecasting methods that do not account for smoking would, perhaps misleadingly, forecast a growing mortality advantage for East German women. Experience from other countries shows that smoking can be effectively reduced by strict anti-smoking policies. Instead, East Germany is becoming an example warning of the consequences of weakening anti-smoking policies and changing behavioral norms.

Care for Money? Mortality Improvements, Increasing Intergenerational Transfers, and Time Devoted to the Elderly

Background: After the reunification of Germany, mortality among older eastern Germans converged quickly with western German levels. Simultaneously, the pension benefits of eastern Germans rose tenfold. Objective: We make use of German reunification as a natural experiment to show that, first, increasing financial transfers from the elderly to their children led to increasing reverse transfers in the form of care; and, second, this rise in the number of hours spent on care led to a reduction in old-age mortality. Method: As a first step, we calculated intergenerational transfer profiles by age for eastern and western Germany to determine whether any changes in downward and in upward transfers in the form of time and money occurred since reunification. We use generalized linear regression to test whether rising pensions led to an increase in the number of hours spent on care, and whether this increase led to a reduction in old-age mortality. We use different macro level data sources to test our hypothesis, including mortality rates and time use surveys for East and West Germany and information on private intergenerational transfers from the National Transfer Accounts project for Germany. Results: We show that since German reunification, intergenerational downward transfers more than doubled in percentage terms in the east. This was predominantly caused by the sharp increase in pension benefits since the fall of the Berlin Wall. At the same time, mortality among pensioners dropped markedly, and converged to western German levels. We further show that the rise in pension income was strongly correlated with the increase in social support and the decline in mortality among older eastern Germans. Discussion: Our result suggest that there was an interfamilial monetary transfer from the elderly to the young in exchange for social support. This mutual beneficial exchange may have helped to improve the survival of older East Germans after the reunification.

Estimating the contribution of mortality selection to the East–West German mortality convergence

BackgroundBefore German reunification, old-age mortality was considerably higher in East Germany than West Germany but converged quickly afterward. Previous studies attributed this rapid catch-up to improved living conditions. We add to this discussion by quantifying for the first time the impact of mortality selection.MethodsWe use a gamma-Gompertz mortality model to estimate the contribution of selection to the East–West German mortality convergence before and after reunification.ResultsWe find that, compared to the West, frailer East Germans died earlier due to deteriorating mortality conditions leading to converging mortality rates for women and men already over age 70 before 1990. After 1990, the selection of frailer individuals played only a minor role in closing the East–west German mortality gap. However, our study suggests that, after reunification, old-age mortality improved quickly because the more robust population in the East benefitted greatly from ameliorating external factors such as health care and better living standards.ConclusionOur results from a natural experiment show that selection of frail individuals plays an important role in population-level mortality dynamics. In the case of the German reunification, East German old-age mortality already converged before 1990 because of stronger selection pressure.BACKGROUND Before German reunification, old-age mortality was considerably higher in East Germany than West Germany but converged quickly afterward. Previous studies attributed this rapid catch-up to improved living conditions. We add to this discussion by quantifying for the first time the impact of mortality selection. METHODS We use a gamma-Gompertz mortality model to estimate the contribution of selection to the East-West German mortality convergence before and after reunification. RESULTS We find that, compared to the West, frailer East Germans died earlier due to deteriorating mortality conditions leading to converging mortality rates for women and men already over age 70 before 1990. After 1990, the selection of frailer individuals played only a minor role in closing the East-west German mortality gap. However, our study suggests that, after reunification, old-age mortality improved quickly because the more robust population in the East benefitted greatly from ameliorating external factors such as health care and better living standards. CONCLUSION Our results from a natural experiment show that selection of frail individuals plays an important role in population-level mortality dynamics. In the case of the German reunification, East German old-age mortality already converged before 1990 because of stronger selection pressure.