November 2019

Calibrating Gompertz in Reverse: Mortality-adjusted (Biological) Ages around the World

By Moshe A. Milevsky This paper develops a statistical and methodological framework for inverting the Gompertz-Makeham (GM) law of mortality for heterogenous populations in a manner consistent with a compensation law of mortality (CLaM), to formally define a global mortality-adjusted (biological) age. It implements and calibrates this framework using rates from the Human Mortality Database (HMD) to illustrate its salience and applicability. Among other things, this paper demonstrates that when properly benchmarked, the global mortality-adjusted (biological) age of a...

Ageing population a threat to Australian economy: Treasurer

Australia's Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has warned that the nation's ageing population is an "economic time bomb". Read also US. Longevity Project explores the nuanced implications of longer life According to The Australian Financial Review on Tuesday, Frydenberg said in a speech that the population is ageing and this will place new demands on health, aged care and pension systems. Read also The human face of pension management According to data cited in his speech, the ratio of working-age Australians to every...

US. Longevity Project explores the nuanced implications of longer life

As longer life expectancy brings about substantial changes in the make-up of American society, Americans are still grappling with the implications of longer life on how we work, live and learn, according to a poll fielded by the Longevity Project, a new initiative developed in collaboration with the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL). Read also Young people are saving more for retirement than Boomers and Generation X — and this is why The mission of the Longevity Project is...

October 2019

Ireland. Defusing the pension time bomb

The Government’s recently published “National Risk Assessment 2019” identified Ireland’s rapidly-ageing population as a significant risk to a number of essential areas. There is talk from some quarters that the State pension will eventually disappear due to rising costs. Is this simply scaremongering from those with skin in the game, or should people be fearfu for the future of a cherished benefit? Aisling Kelly, senior healthcare consultant at Mercer, says she is not of the opinion that the State...

Five Ways to Improve Retirement Security in the U.S.

Given the fact that nearly half of households headed by someone age 55 or older have no retirement savings and that one estimate puts the median retirement account balance across all savers at $40,000, the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program convened its third annual Leadership Forum on Retirement Savings. More than 70 experts and industry leaders explored feasible solutions over the course of two days. By Forum’s end, participants had identified five ideas most ready for advancement. The first...

German Bundesbank recommends raising retirement age to 69

Imagine working until at least the age of 69 - that’s what the experts at the Bundesbank in Germany are recommending. They argue that such a change is necessary; otherwise pension payments will fall too low in the face of rising life expectancies. Demographic change puts pressure on German pension system Discussing the prospect of a future reform of the pension system in Germany, the Bundesbank has proposed a long-term increase in the retirement age to 69 years...

August 2019

Tenure Choice, Portfolio Structure and Long-Term Care – Optimal Risk Management in Retirement

By Hans Fehr, Maurice Hofmann We study the interplay between tenure decisions, stock market investment and the public social security system. Housing equity not only serves a dual purpose as a consumption good and as an asset, but also provides insurance to buffer various risks in retirement. Our life cycle model captures these links in order to explain why homeownership in Germany is so low. Our simulation results indicate that the public long-term care as well as the pension...

December 2018

The Future of Ageing in Europe: Making an Asset of Longevity

By Alan Walker This book provides the most comprehensive analysis available of the challenges created by Europe’s ageing population. Grounded in state-of-the-art scientific assessments by leading European researchers, the book is strongly policy focused. Indeed this book contains a detailed account of the policies required across a broad field, from economic sustainability and extending working lives, to healthy ageing, technological innovation, long term care and political citizenship, for the successful adaptation to the challenges of ageing in Europe and globally....

August 2018

The Power of Working Longer

By Gila Bronshtein This paper compares the relative strengths of working longer vs. saving more in terms of increasing a household’s affordable, sustainable standard of living in retirement. Both stylized households and actual households from the Health and Retirement Study are examined. We assume that workers commence Social Security benefits when they retire. The basic result is that delaying retirement by 3-6 months has the same impact on the retirement standard of living as saving an additional one-percentage point of...

UK. Investing for the 100-year life: How to model income in retirement

Financial planning experts have urged advisers to stay up to date with how they model income in retirement as life expectancy, health and working patterns continue to shift among the older population. In the first of our new roundtables with Vitality as part of our Value Exchange project, we gathered specialists in cashflow planning, behavioural economics and financial education to discuss how advisers can meet the challenges of clients banks that are living healthier, and living healthier for longer. Founder of...