August 2026
25Aug

South Korea’s pension recipients rise 5.6% in 2024

South Korea's pension recipients aged 65 and older rose 5.6 per cent to 9,122,000 in 2024, driven by a rapidly aging population, the Ministry of Data and Statistics said Tuesday (Aug 25). The average monthly pension payout rose 6.0 per cent from a year earlier to 737,000 won (about US$530) in 2024. Men received an average of 957,000 won, while women averaged 546,000 won. Those aged 65-69 received 858,000 won, compared with 577,000 won for people aged 80 and older. Among...

August 25, 2026
News, ,
Read more...
24Aug

US. Successfully Aging: The economic contributions of people aged 50 years and older

Q. I continue to read that our seniors are a drain on the economy with the costs of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other government age-related programs. I don’t want to feel guilty because I certainly do my part. Can you provide another side of the story? Thanks. B.K. Thank you for that very important question. Clearly, the programs you mentioned are a significant part of our government’s budget and expenses. However, there is another side to the story. It’s called...

August 24, 2026
News,
Read more...
21Aug

The Global Transition – The Impact of Demographics and AI on Economic Power

By Seth Benzell, Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Victor Yifan Ye This study deploys a multi-region, dynamic life-cycle, general equilibrium model to assess demography’s impact, through the course of this century, on global development. Our model’s 17 regions encompass more than 150 countries comprising 99% of the world’s population. Output is produced with three labor skill groups and internationally-mobile capital, with each country deciding annually whether to adopt its frontier automation technology. Our model features region-specific fiscal policy, TFP growth, and...

August 21, 2026
Aging, Articles, Labor Market, , , , ,
Read more...
21Aug

Job displacement and the health of older adults: Evidence from China

By Xiaoyun Zhang & Yiyang Luo This paper investigates the long-term consequences of involuntary job displacement on multidimensional health outcomes among middle-aged and older adults in urban China, using the 2014 China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS) Life History Questionnaire. To address the endogeneity of job loss, we exploit business closures, position cancellations, and layoffs during the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) reforms in the late 1990s as exogenous labor market shocks and employ Propensity Score Matching (PSM) to control for...

August 21, 2026
Articles, Labor Market, , , ,
Read more...
14Aug

Ageing in Latin America and the Caribbean: inclusion and rights of older persons

By NU & CEPAL In Latin America and the Caribbean, population ageing —a demographic phenomenon that is characterized by an increase in the proportion of older persons and the lengthening of the life cycle— presents both opportunities and challenges for public policy. This document presents the report of Latin America and the Caribbean for the fourth review and appraisal of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing, 2002. The report analyses the current situation of ageing in the region and...

August 14, 2026
Aging, Books, Books, Reports, , ,
Read more...
14Aug

Shadow Pensions: An Exploratory Field Study of Informal Old-Age Income Strategies Among Jakarta’s Unregistered Workforce

By Fajrin Andi Muhamad Pratama Indonesia's main old-age insurance program, BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, is built almost entirely around formal employment-yet three in five Indonesian workers are informal, and only a small fraction of them are ever enrolled. National statistics capture the size of that gap well; they say almost nothing about what people actually do instead. I spent three days in Jakarta interviewing market traders and ojek drivers to find out. The results were not quite what I expected going in....

August 14, 2026
Articles, Pension design, , , ,
Read more...
14Aug

Saving for Old Age

By Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Leora F. Klapper & Georgios A. Panos Countries around the world face a retirement crisis brought on by aging populations, declining birthrates, and fiscal shortfalls. As a result, policy makers increasingly seek to understand retirement savings patterns, a crucial component of the safety net for the elderly. Drawing on the 2014 Global Findex database, which provides individual-level data on the use of financial products in more than 140 countries, this paper examines how adults save for old...

August 14, 2026
Articles, Savings, , , ,
Read more...
10Aug

Fewer babies, more retirees: How Europe’s demographic math is changing

Europe is confronting a demographic problem that is becoming increasingly difficult for governments to ignore: fewer children are being born while the number of older people continues to rise. The trend is already visible in shrinking schools, ageing communities and growing pressure on pension and healthcare systems. In the Spanish village of Vilardevos, the change is particularly stark. A primary school originally built for around 700 children now has only 31 pupils. Classes have to be combined because there are not...

August 10, 2026
News, , ,
Read more...
07Aug

The macroeconomic and fiscal impact of population ageing

By Katalin Bodnár & Carolin Nerlich The euro area, like many other advanced economies, has entered an era of drastic demographic change. Without appropriate policy responses, population ageing in the euro area is posing formidable challenges for potential growth, monetary policy and public finances. This paper examines – from a central bank’s perspective – the macroeconomic and fiscal effects of population ageing in the euro area and looks at the main challenges ahead in the next decades. Total population in the...

August 7, 2026
Aging, Books, Books, Reports, , , ,
Read more...
07Aug

When aging meets digital & AI: Closing the silver digital divide for an aging world

We are living through two megatrends humanity has never seen before. The first is aging. Populations over 65 are growing not just in developed countries, but across many middle-income economies. As societies age, the strains pile up: fewer workers,  weaker demand, overstretched health systems, and rising risks to long-term fiscal sustainability. The second is the technology revolution. Digital technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can now deliver services once scarce and costly, from tutoring workers to guiding patients and delivering public services. These are the...

August 7, 2026
News,
Read more...