Trends in Working Life Expectancy in Europe

Objectives: The aim of the article is to analyze past and present developments of working life expectancy (WLE) at age 50 in Europe, by age and sex. Differences in WLE by education are explored as well. WLE is also compared to life expectancy (LE) and healthy life expectancy (HLE) at age 50. Methods: WLE is calculated with the Sullivan Method. Results: WLE at age 50 has been increasing since the mid- to late-90s in most countries. Increases were more pronounced among women than men, leading to a reduction in gender differences. Differences in WLE by education are substantial. Developments of WLE as a share of LE at age 50 showed no uniform pattern, but gender differences decreased here as well. The comparison of WLE, LE and HLE for the year 2009 reveals that the correlation between WLE and LE is smaller than between WLE and HLE. Discussion: The analysis of trends in WLE at age 50, particularly when set in relation to remaining LE, provides useful insights of how the distribution of economically active and inactive years above age 50 are developing in Europe’s aging societies

Demographic Profile of the Arab Region: Realizing the Demographic Dividend. E/ESCWA/SDD/2016/Technical Paper 3

The demographic transition is a change in patterns of population growth, from high rates of fertility and mortality to low rates of fertility and mortality. At an early stage, this transition leads to a shift in the population’s age composition whereby the number of working-age persons exceeds that of economically dependent persons. More resources are then available for investment in human capital (health and education), physical capital, and economic and social development. This phase is referred to as the demographic dividend or demographic window of opportunity. Its duration varies between countries, and it is affected by various factors such as the speed of fertility decline (the faster the better), and employment and productivity rates. Today, Arab countries are registering declining fertility rates and increases in life expectancy, although at different paces and starting from different levels. They are thus at different stages of the demographic transition and of the window of opportunity. This study, aimed at analysing the demographic changes that Arab countries are undergoing, classes them in four categories: (a) Arab least developed countries (LDCs): Comoros, Djibouti, Mauritania, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen; (b) Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates; (c) Mashreq countries: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, State of Palestine and Syrian Arab Republic; and (d) Maghreb countries: Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. It gives an overview of population dynamics and trends in the Arab region and assesses the window of opportunity during which each country could reap the benefits of its changing population structure. Reaping the benefits of the demographic dividend is not automatic and requires an enabling policy environment. The study thus presents four case studies on countries that benefitted from their demographic window of opportunity by implementing sound policies, making recommendations for the Arab region

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

Reducing Vulnerability in Critical Life Course Phases through Enhancing Human Capital

In this paper we examine selected types of vulnerability over the human life course with a specific focus on differentials not only by age and gender -- as is conventionally done in demography -- but also by level of education and with a focus on health. Starting with the newborn and vulnerability in terms of infant and child mortality, we refer to the level of education of the mother. In reference to young people's susceptibility to unemployment after leaving school, we take into account the education of the women and men themselves. Proceeding further in the life course, we next consider vulnerability to becoming disabled in the age group 30-74 according to the education level of the studied persons themselves. Finally, the last section studies differential vulnerability at the national level using the time series of deaths from disasters where the aggregate levels of education at a national level are being taken into account. We conclude that over the entire life cycle of individuals, the changes in behavior that tend to be associated with more education (of mothers or the persons themselves) can be viewed as a potent factor in reducing child mortality, reducing the risk for unemployment at young age, reducing the vulnerability to natural disasters, and finally reducing the risk of falling into disability. These general long-term benefits of near-term investments in education hold for individuals as well as for entire societies

Live longer, retire later? Developments of healthy life expectancies and working life expectancies between age 50–59 and age 60–69 in Europe

Europe’s population is ageing. Statutory retirement ages are commonly raised to account for continuous increases in life expectancy. In order to estimate the potential to increase statutory and consequently effective retirement ages further, in this study, we investigate the relationship between partial working life expectancy (WLE) and three health expectancies that represent health aspects important for work ability and employability between ages 50 and 59 as well as 60 and 69 for women and men in Europe. We also explore the association between these four indicators and the highest level of educational attainment. We apply Sullivan’s method to estimate WLE and three selected measures that capture general, physical, and cognitive health status of older adults for 26 European countries since 2004. Over time, WLEs increased significantly in the younger age group for women and in the older age group for both sexes. The expected number of years in good physical health have continuously been higher than any of the other three indicators, while the expected number of years in good cognitive health have shown a noticeable increase over time. The investigation of the relationship between education and each life expectancy confirms the well-established positive correlation between education and economic activity as well as good health. Our results indicate potential to extend working lives beyond current levels. However, significant differences in the expected number of years in good health between persons with different levels of education require policies that account for this heterogeneity

Feminising the workforce in ageing East Asia? The potential of skilled female labour in four advanced economies

The populations of Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore are ageing rapidly, triggering fears of labour shortages. In spite of the widely acknowledged importance of worker’s skill levels, traditional labour supply projections do not account for ongoing changes in populations’ education composition and educational differentials in economic activity. By focusing on the role of educational expansion in general and female labour potential in particular, this study analyses past trends and projects future labour supply in four advanced Asian economies. We first offer an in-depth overview of developments of labour force participation, emphasising each country-specific context. We then provide selected scenarios of labour force projections up to 2050 which consider changing population compositions by education and differentials in labour participation patterns. We find that due to continued improvements in education, post-secondary educated workers will make up at least two-thirds of the future labour force in each economy. If female labour force participation saw increases in line with the assumptions of our benchmark scenario, the share of post-secondary educated women could exceed 30% of the entire workforce by 2050. Hence, the pressing problem of labour shrinkage could partly be offset by particularly incorporating better-educated women. Our findings underscore the effects of different participation scenarios (especially of women) on the total size of the labour force and the importance of including the education dimension in considerations about future labour supply. While we are not the first to make the latter argument, we are the first to quantify this potential for the analysed four advanced Asian economies

Variation in cognitive functioning as a refined approach to comparing aging across countries

Comparing the burden of aging across countries hinges on the availability of valid and comparable indicators. The Old Age Dependency Ratio allows only a limited assessment of the challenges of aging, because it does not include information on any individual characteristics except age itself. Existing alternative indicators based on health or economic activity suffer from measurement and comparability problems. We propose an indicator based on age variation in cognitive functioning. We use newly released data from standardized tests of seniors' cognitive abilities for countries from different world regions. In the wake of long-term advances in countries industrial composition, and technological advances, the ability to handle new job procedures is now of high and growing importance, which increases the importance of cognition for work performance over time. In several countries with older populations, we find better cognitive performance on the part of populations aged 50+ than in countries with chronologically younger populations. This variation in cognitive functioning levels may be explained by the fact that seniors in some regions of the world experienced better conditions during childhood and adult life, including nutrition, duration and quality of schooling, lower exposure to disease, and physical and social activity patterns. Because of the slow process of cohort replacement, those countries whose seniors already have higher cognitive levels today are likely to continue to be at an advantage for several decades to come