April 2018

23Apr

Financializing Poverty: Labor and Risk in Indian Microfinance

By Sohini Kar Microfinance is the business of giving small, collateral-free loans to poor borrowers that are paid back in frequent intervals with interest. While these for-profit microfinance institutions (MFIs) promise social and economic empowerment, they have mainly succeeded at enfolding the poor—especially women—into the vast circuits of global finance. Financializing Poverty ethnographically examines how the emergence of MFIs has allowed financial institutions in the city of Kolkata, India, to capitalize on the poverty of its residents. This book reveals how...

April 23, 2018
Books, Labor Market
Read more...
23Apr

Healthy Ageing: A Capability Approach to Inclusive Policy and Practice

By Christine Stephens &‎ Mary Breheny What does it mean to age well? This important new book redefines what ‘successful’ aging means, challenging the idea that physical health is the only criteria to gauge the aging process, and that an aging population is necessarily a burden upon society. Using Sen’s Capabilities Approach as a theoretical starting point Healthy Ageing: A Capability Approach to Inclusive Policy and Practice outlines a nuanced perspective that transcends the purely biomedical view, recognising ideas of resilience,...

April 23, 2018
Aging, Books, Labor Market,
Read more...
23Apr

Organizing Old Age Pensions for India’s Informal Workers: A Case Study of a Sector-Driven Approach

By M.R. Narayana (University of Mysore) About 88 percent of India’s total labor force is composed of informal (officially labeled “unorganized”) workers. As many as 388 million such workers lack old age income security by way of a pension system. The Atal Pension Yojana (APY) is the latest contributory, national-level old age pension scheme for unorganized workers, with an entry age of 18–40 years. In other words, all current unorganized workers above the age of 40 are excluded. How could...

April 23, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , ,
Read more...
23Apr

Organizing Old Age Pensions for India's Informal Workers: A Case Study of a Sector-Driven Approach

By M.R. Narayana (University of Mysore) About 88 percent of India’s total labor force is composed of informal (officially labeled “unorganized”) workers. As many as 388 million such workers lack old age income security by way of a pension system. The Atal Pension Yojana (APY) is the latest contributory, national-level old age pension scheme for unorganized workers, with an entry age of 18–40 years. In other words, all current unorganized workers above the age of 40 are excluded. How could...

April 23, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, Pension design, , ,
Read more...
16Apr

Why Do Defaults Affect Behavior? Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan

By Joshua Blumenstock, Michael Callen, Tarek Ghani We report on an experiment examining why default options impact behavior. By randomly assigning employees to different varieties of a salary-linked savings account, we find that default enrollment increases participation by 40 percentage points—an effect equivalent to providing a 50% matching incentive. We then use a series of experimental interventions to differentiate between explanations for the default effect, which we conclude is driven largely by present-biased preferences and the cognitive cost of thinking...

April 16, 2018
Articles, Labor Market, Savings, ,
Read more...
15Apr

On Welfare Effects of Increasing Retirement Age

By Krzysztof Makarski (National Bank of Poland; Warsaw School of Economics (SGH)) & Joanna Tyrowicz (National Bank of Poland; University of Warsaw) We develop an OLG model with realistic assumptions about longevity to analyze the welfare effects of raising the retirement age. We look at a scenario where an economy has a pay-as-you-go defined benefit scheme and compare it to a scenario with defined contribution schemes (funded or notional). We show that, initially, in both types of pension system schemes...

April 15, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, , ,
Read more...
09Apr

Faulty Transmissions: Howe Demographics Affect Monetary Policy in Canada

By Steve Ambler (University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) - Centre de recherche sur l'emploi et les fluctuations économiques (CREFÉ)) & Jeremy Kronick (C.D. Howe Institute) Over the past decade, inflation in many countries has been tepid, despite rock-bottom interest rates and different forms of unconventional stimulative monetary policy, including quantitative easing. For its part, Canada has averaged 1.5 percent inflation over this period, below the 2 percent target. This Commentary asks what role demographics, in particular an aging population,...

April 9, 2018
Articles, Labor Market,
Read more...
09Apr

The Relation Between the Migration, Population Aging, Labor Force Productivity and Economic Growth: An Analysis for Bulgaria

By Hamit Can (Technical University of Sofia) & Venelin Terziev (Vasil Levski National Military University; University of Ruse) In this study, the relationship between population, elderly population and economic growth is analyzed theoretically, taking into account the demographic change of the Bulgarian population and the more aging phenomenon. Thus, the change in the age structure of the Bulgarian population was investigated and the factors affecting the growth of the relationship between economic growth were investigated. Developed countries are trying to...

April 9, 2018
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, System Sustainability, ,
Read more...
02Apr

The Return to Work and Women’s Employment Decisions

By Nicole Maestas (Harvard Medical School - Department of Health Care Policy) It is well documented that individuals in couples tend to retire around the same time. But because women tend to marry older men, this means many married women retire at younger ages than their husbands. This fact is somewhat at odds with lifecycle theory that suggests women might otherwise retire at later ages than men because they have longer life expectancies, and often have had shorter careers on...

April 2, 2018
Articles, Labor Market,
Read more...

March 2018

26Mar

When Mommies Become Nannies: The Effects of Parental Retirement Across Generations

By Yi Chen (Jinan University - Institute for Economic and Social Research) & Xiaoyun Zhang (University of New South Wales (UNSW) - ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR)) This paper analyzes the effect of parental retirement on the next generation through intergenerational time transfer. We investigate a series of consequences, including women's time allocation, fertility decisions, labor force participation, and subjective well-being. The study uses data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and employs regression discontinuity...

March 26, 2018
Articles, Labor Market,
Read more...