April 2026

The Welfare Effects of Protecting Older Workers

By Todd Morris, Stefan Staubli & Benoit Dostie We evaluate the welfare effects of five provincial mandatory retirement bans in Canada from 2005 to 2009 using linked employer-employee tax data. The bans sharply reduce retirements at age 65, with sizable announcement effects and heterogeneity across industries. Post-65 employment and earnings rise at least 14%, with gains comparable to a two-year increase in pension-eligibility ages. Older workers save more and spouses postpone retirement, benefiting public finances, with no observable effects on...

March 2026

Challenges of the Power of the New Longevity: Age Discrimination in the Workplace, and More, in Argentina

By Virginia Marturet Life expectancy has significantly increased, reaching an average of 77 years in Argentina. The current challenge is to enhance the quality of those years. Age discrimination is the third leading cause of discrimination worldwide and is prevalent in Argentina, particularly in workplaces, society, and daily life. Our current challenge is to make those years a life with more quality and fullness. What is the power of all that we have gained and how do we take advantage...

The Real Fertility Crisis 2025: The pursuit of reproductive agency in a changing world

By UNFPA Millions of people around the world are unable to have the number of children they want – whether they want more, fewer, or none at all. Recently, fertility declines are making headlines, with women all too often blamed for these demographic shifts. Some governments are employing drastic measures to incentivize young people to make fertility decisions in line with national targets. But the real crisis is that the most consequential reproductive decision a human being can make – when, whether...

February 2026

Population Aging and Pension Reforms in China

By Boele Bonthuis, Yongquan Cao & Christoph Freudenberg China is experiencing rapid population aging and a declining workforce, posing significant economic and fiscal challenges, especially to the pension system. This paper examines the evolution of China’s pension system, assesses its gaps relative to international peers, and evaluates the macro-fiscal implications of population aging and various pension reforms. Using a calibrated overlapping generations model that explicitly incorporates the rural–urban disparities, we project that population aging alone can slow annual GDP growth by...

January 2026

Population Aging and Corporate Leverage

By Xingshen Li, Kexin Jiang, Wei Li & Xiaofen Tan This study examines the relationship between corporate leverage and population aging. Based on a panel dataset of global listed firms from 2000 to 2021, we find that population aging at the country level reduces a firm’s leverage. This effect is mediated through mechanisms that influence operational pressures and asset prices. Further analysis reveals that the adverse impact of population aging on corporate leverage is more pronounced among firms with higher financial...

The future of public pension provision in the UK: challenges and trade-offs

By Jonathan Cribb , Carl Emmerson & Heidi Karjalainen The UK state pension system faces significant challenges given the country’s ageing population, but at the same time it is crucial for retirement finances: state pensions make up on average almost half of income for recently retired households. Reforms coming into force in 2010 and 2016 have increased universality, and most future pensioners will receive a full (flat rate) state pension. Policy-makers seeking to limit the cost of the system have...

December 2025

Public pensions and family dynamics: Eldercare, child investment, and son preference in rural China

By Naijia Guo, Wei Huang & Ruixin Wang Using variations in the timing of the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) across rural Chinese counties, we examine its effects on eldercare mode, child investment, and son preference. Our findings are three-fold: (1) After the introduction of NRPS, married sons are less likely to live with and provide care for their parents, while married daughters show no significant change in their caregiving behavior; (2) Parents reduce the brideprice for their sons but not the dowry...

Japan’s Aging Workforce: Determinants and Outlook

By Sagiri Kitao & Nozomi Takeda This paper examines recent trends in the Japanese labor market, with a particular focus on the elderly workforce. Japan's elderly employment rates are notably high compared to other OECD countries and have increased significantly over the past two decades. To investigate the factors that affect the employment of old individuals, we develop a structural life-cycle model with consumption-saving decisions and endogenous labor supply in both intensive and extensive margins. The model is calibrated to...

November 2025

The longevity revolution: Preparing for a new reality

By Fidelity International There is a quiet revolution happening. It is not about climate change, market cycles or artificial intelligence. It is about time - more specifically, how much more of it we have, and the ability to do what we want with that extra time. For the first time in human history, older populations are growing at a faster pace than the youngest cohorts, ushering in an unprecedented demographic shift worldwide. By 2050, 2.1 billion people - nearly 22%...

Pension sustainability and government effectiveness in the presence of population aging

By Dooyeon Cho & Kyung-woo Lee This study investigates the nonlinear effect of population aging on pension sustainability, contingent on perceived government effectiveness. Analyzing heterogeneous panel data for 15 OECD economies over the period 2002–2019, our findings reveal nonlinear patterns and evolving dynamics over time. We find that the negative impact of population aging on pension sustainability intensifies significantly as government effectiveness diminishes, indicating that the manner in which government policies are implemented and managed significantly influences how effectively pension systems can...