September 2024

The Average Retirement Age in 2024: US vs. UK

With recent economic challenges and rising costs of living, retirement is on many Americans’ minds. You may be wondering: Is the state of retirement in the U.S. worse than in other countries? That depends on which country you’re talking about. Read on to learn about the average retirement age in the U.S. and UK, plus current retirement processes, to compare the difference.   Earning passive income doesn't need to be difficult. You can start this week. What Is the Average Retirement Age in the US? According to...

August 2024

A Two-Generation Model with Altruism for Reverse Mortgage Demand

By Yunxiao Wang, Katja Hanewald, Zilin (Scott) Shao, Hazel Bateman Reverse mortgage markets remain relatively small internationally, with one frequently cited reason being bequest motives. We study the role of reverse mortgages in intergenerational financial planning as a tool for families to bring forward bequests. We develop a new two-generation lifecycle model with parental altruism to compare the welfare gains of bequests and early bequests (inter vivos gifts) for homeowning parents and adult children seeking to purchase their first home....

A Two-Generation Model with Altruism for Reverse Mortgage Demand

By Yunxiao Wang, Katja Hanewald, Zilin (Scott) Shao & Hazel Bateman Reverse mortgage markets remain relatively small internationally, with one frequently cited reason being bequest motives. We study the role of reverse mortgages in intergenerational financial planning as a tool for families to bring forward bequests. We develop a new two-generation lifecycle model with parental altruism to compare the welfare gains of bequests and early bequests (inter vivos gifts) for homeowning parents and adult children seeking to purchase their first...

July 2024

Elderly Germans Face Rising Poverty Threat

Germany is facing a growing concern over the rising number of elderly citizens living in poverty. Recent investigative reports indicate that a staggering 3.2 million pensioners in the country are at risk of economic hardship, a situation worsened by stagnant wages and insufficient pension benefits. As mentioned in reports from the public broadcaster ARD, nearly one in five, or approximately 18.7%, of Germany's pensioners were classified as being at risk of poverty as of 2017. This alarming statistic highlights...

Breaking the Vicious Circles of Informal Employment and Low-Paying Work

By Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development This report adds two perspectives on informality. First, it disassembles the mechanics of the deleterious links between informal employment, low-paying work and low skills. It shows that informal employment is highly persistent, and that the vulnerability of informal workers is passed on to their children in the absence of adequate education, skills and social protection policy. Second, the report underscores the double burden of informality and low-paying work that a large share of...

2024 Pension adequacy report: Current and future income adequacy in old age in the EU

By European Union  The report’s main focus is on old-age pension systems. It looks primarily at statutory pensions, incorporating the adequacy contribution of supplementary pensions where relevant. The report also looks at the role of survivors’ pensions in providing adequate old-age income for surviving spouses. In the context of its analysis of income inequalities and redistribution mechanisms, the report also considers minimum income provision for older people and how taxation affects income distribution in old age. Given the importance of services...

Career Expectations and Outcomes: Evidence (on Gender Gaps) from the Economics Job Market

By Brooke Helppie McFall, Eric D. Parolin & Basit Zafar This paper investigates gender gaps in long-term career expectations and outcomes of PhD candidates in economics. For this purpose, we match rich survey data on PhD candidates (from the 2008-2010 job market cohorts) to public data on job histories and publication records through 2022. We document four novel empirical facts: (1) there is a robust gender gap in career expectations, with females about 10 percentage points less likely to ex-ante expect to get...

June 2024

LGBT Workers in the Labor Market

By Caroline Medina, Lindsay Mahowald & Rose Khattar The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic crisis resulted in significant hardship for people across the country: Tens of millions of people lost their jobs, unemployment rates increased, and economic activity declined. To mitigate these economic impacts, federal policymakers enacted multiple relief bills, including the American Rescue Plan Act. These investments shortened the recession in the wake of the pandemic and have helped propel a historic economic recovery resulting in the most jobs...

Retirement Confidence Survey and the LGBTQ Community

By Craig Copeland (Employee Benefit Research Institute) & Lisa Greenwald (Greenwald Research) The Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) was conducted for its 32nd year in 2022 to measure attitudes of American workers and retirees about issues surrounding retirement. For the first time, in 2022, the RCS included an oversample of LGBTQ Americans to allow for an analysis of the challenges that LGBTQ workers and retirees face in preparing for and living in retirement. Questions included in this year’s survey explore priorities...

A Wealth of Well-Being: A Holistic Approach to Behavioral Finance

By Meir Statman I often note that the biggest risks in life are not in the stock market. If you want real risk, I say, get married. And if you want more risk, have children. People laugh, because the point is obvious. Yet that point is regularly lost when we speak about financial well-being, neglecting life well-being. I was motivated to write my book, “A Wealth of Well-Being, by reflecting on my own financial and life well-being and those of...