July 2023

Health Capacity to Work and Retirement Expectations

By Italo Lopez Garcia, Nicole Maestas & Kathleen J. Mullen Understanding how health influences retirement is fundamental for the design of targeted policies that encourage working longer. While there is wide agreement on the relevance of age-related health decline for determining retirement decisions, the process remains a black box. This paper explores the match between individuals’ functional abilities and job demands in the national economy using a new methodology to measure work capacity. Specifically, we construct a measure of work...

June 2023

China. TV series set to teach elderly people about health

China's first TV series popularizing health information for the elderly premiered in Shanghai on Wednesday. The 10-episode series, which takes a lighthearted approach, focuses on helping the elderly understand common acute and severe threats to health, as well as chronic diseases in a scientific way, and also teaches them how to take precautions just in case. The show is the joint creation of Huashan Hospital Affiliated with Fudan University and the Shanghai Theatre Academy and is titled Ms Kang and Her...

May 2023

The Future of AI and Older Adults

By Laurie M. Orlov  Advances in AI got the full attention of the technology industry, which is undergoing its first major disruption since the arrival of smart speakers and voice in 2014. Multiple industries see compelling opportunities, including healthcare providers, senior living, customer service providers, training and remote monitoring service offerings. Government organizations are investing in AI and aging startups and programs. Although there are a number of barriers to adoption, in the not-so-distant future, machine learning, chatbots, and AI in the home...

Loneliness can impact longevity & quality of life, claims study

Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, recently warned that "being socially disconnected" has a similar effect on mortality as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. This statement was widely reported in the media, including in the Washington Post, the Times and the Daily Mail. But where does this "15 cigarettes a day" figure come from? Dr Murthy is referring to a study published in 2010 that explored social relationships and mortality rates. The researchers combined the data from 148...

April 2023

UK. Should pensions tax relief be used to fund care costs?

Getting more people into work and keeping them there for longer was a thread that ran throughout last month’s Spring Budget. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt focused on childcare, state benefit reform and elements of the pensions tax relief system, such as the abolition of the lifetime allowance (LTA). But there was nothing more to add on the funding of social care. Last year’s Autumn Statement, which confirmed the proposed £86,000 cap on social care costs in England would be delayed by...

Priorities for social security Trends, challenges and solutions

By Raúl Ruggia-Frick The International Social Security Association (ISSA) draws its value, strength and dynamism from its global membership, which consists of national institutions that administer the main social security programmes in their countries. This gives the Association a unique and privileged vantage point from which to identify and analyse priority administration and policy challenges in social security, and the many innovative responses and creative solutions to these. The ISSA was looking to the future when it set the priorities of...

March 2023

Portugal. Bringing together students and pensioners

The program, entitled “Abraço de Gerações”, is promoted by the Associação Cozinhas Económicas Rainha Santa Isabel (ACERSI), is based in downtown Coimbra, and is seeking to respond to two problems felt in the city – the difficulty of accessing accommodation for students and the isolation of elderly people -, said Teresa Sousa. The initiative is promoted in partnership with the Associação Académica de Coimbra (AAC) and the Associação de Former Students of Coimbra, as part of a project entitled “Oficina...

January 2023

Promoting an Age-Inclusive Workforce

All OECD economies are undergoing rapid population ageing, leading to more age diversity in workplaces than ever before as people are not only living longer but working longer. Greater diversity of experience, generations and skills gives employers an important opportunity to harness the talent that different age groups bring to the workplace and improve productivity and profitability. What can employers do to maximise the benefits of a multigenerational workforce? This report presents a business case for embracing greater age diversity...

Early retirement can accelerate cognitive decline among the elderly, research shows

Early retirement can accelerate cognitive decline among the elderly, according to research conducted by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Plamen Nikolov, assistant professor of economics, and Shahadath Hossain, a doctoral student in economics, both from Binghamton University, examined China's New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS) and the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey (CHARLS) to determine how retirement plans affect cognitive performance among plan participants. CHARLS, a nationally representative survey of people ages 45 and above within...

Dutch medical specialists: focus on healthy pensions

Medicine and finance can be seen as two very distant disciplines. Perhaps pension fund management is where the two disciplines find common ground. When it comes to pensions, a finance practitioner must be able to think and act with a long-term objective in mind and to put the well-being of its clients above everything else, as a healthcare professional would deal with a patient. That common ground is a strong foundation for Stichting Pensioenfonds Medisch Specialisten (SPMS), the pension fund...