Documents life expectancy 45 results

"Clustering countries based on health outcomes is a useful technique for assessing global health disparities. However, data on country-specific indicators of health outcomes are inconsistent across databases from different sources, such as World Bank, WHO, and UNICEF. The new database on under-five child mortality from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation advances information about child mortality by showing both country-level estimates and confidence intervals. We used the new database for child mortality and WHO data for HALE from 160 countries to identify country clusters through model-based clustering techniques. The four clusters in 2000 and six in 2003, within levels of uncertainty, showed nonlinear distributions of health outcomes globally, indicating that no single trajectory for progression is evident. We propose the use of country clusters in further study of societal conditions that contribute to health outcomes and changes over time."

"Recent literature has shown that it is difficult to ascertain the impact of an ageing population on labour productivity. According to the majority of studies, workforce ageing leads to lower employment and a decline in the professional skills of the employed, so we should expect that it has a negative impact on technological changes and productivity. In this article, we present a review of studies on this issue. After that, an empirical study for Bulgaria is provided using sensitivity tests of long-term projections of labour productivity (to 2050), based on population number and age distribution. A model of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) is applied which allows us to calculate three variants of changing age, number and structure of population, assuming three different rates of improvement in life expectancy – fast, medium and slow. The study confirms that an ageing population has a negative effect on labour productivity. The timeframe is long but, with that limitation in mind, the overall direction of the trend is clear. The article concludes with some policy considerations to help ameliorate the effects of Bulgaria's demographic challenge. "

"In the context of the reform of defined benefit pension systems under population ageing, we focus on the introduction of automatic adjustment mechanisms linked to life expectancy. Our goal is to establish a relationship between changes in the key parameters of the pension system and changes in life expectancy, applying the principle of intergenerational actuarial neutrality. For a defined benefit pension scheme, we first obtain the fundamental adjustment equation and then, for particular cases, we derive different designs of automatic adjustment mechanisms depending on the involved parameter. We include a numerical application only for illustrative purposes."

"This paper explores the link between worklife expectancy, educational attainment and its impact on the wage gap. A model of statistical discrimination that accounts for the achievement gap and differences in worklife expectancy demonstrates that (a) the achievement gap does not influence educational attainment directly through the choice of human capital, (b) discrimination lowers human capital directly through lower wage offers, and (c) lower worklife expectancy leads to lower human capital accumulation. While sufficient data on worklife expectancy by race and education is not available for a detailed empirical analysis, a simple calibration suggests the importance of the achievement gap and worklife expectancy relative to traditional labor market discrimination."

"Compared to other regions, Europe and Central Asia are by far the oldest. Moreover, population aging is set to accelerate further over the coming decades as large segments turn old. Additionally, some countries such as Russia and certain Eastern European countries are facing a shrinkage of their population. Against this backdrop, this report investigates what stands in the way of societies reaping the full benefits of increased longevity—that is, longer lives and potentially prolonged payoffs from human capital—and what can help to mitigate the possible negative impacts of a smaller and older workforce. Beginning with a focus on demographic trends, the report puts the rapid decline in fertility and contrasting migration trends in the region in a historical perspective and looks forward to the varying paths that population change may follow in the region. Next, it examines the evidence on the likely impact of demographic change on growth and savings, the labor force, firm and economy-wide innovation, poverty and inequality, and intergenerational solidarity. Finally, the report goes beyond diagnostics and puts an emphasis on what we know regarding successful policy interventions, presenting evidence on what has and has not worked in the past."

"How was life in 1820, and how has it improved since then? What are the long-term trends in global well-being? Views on social progress since the Industrial Revolution are largely based on historical national accounting in the tradition of Kuznets and Maddison. But trends in real GDP per capita may not fully re­flect changes in other dimensions of well-being such as life expectancy, education, personal security or gender inequality. Looking at these indicators usually reveals a more equal world than the picture given by incomes alone, but has this always been the case? The new report How Was Life? aims to fill this gap. It presents the first systematic evidence on long-term trends in global well-being since 1820 for 25 major countries and 8 regions in the world covering more than 80% of the world's population. It not only shows the data but also discusses the underlying sources and their limitations, pays attention to country averages and inequality, and pinpoints avenues for further research.

The How Was Life? report is the product of collaboration between the OECD, the OECD Development Centre and the CLIO-INFRA project. It represents the culmination of work by a group of economic historians to systematically chart long-term changes in the dimensions of global well-being and inequality, making use of the most recent research carried out within the discipline. The historical evidence reviewed in the report is organised around 10 different dimensions of well-being that mirror those used by the OECD in its well-being report How's Life? (www.oecd.org/howslife), and draw on the best sources and expertise currently available for historical perspectives in this field. These dimensions are:per capita GDP, real wages, educational attainment, life expectancy, height, personal security, political institutions, environmental quality, income inequality and gender inequality."

"This paper presents an overlapping generations model where pollution, private and public healths are all determinants of longevity. Public expenditure, financed through labour taxation, provide both public health and abatement. We study the complementarity between the three components of longevity on welfare and economic stability. At the steady state, we show that an appropriate fiscal policy may enhance welfare. However, when pollution is heavily harmful for longevity, the economy might experience aggregate instability or endogenous cycles. Nonetheless, a fiscal policy, which raises the share of public spending devoted to health, may display stabilizing virtues and rule out cycles. This allows us to recommend the design of the public policy that may comply with the dynamic and welfare objectives."

"Can longer working lives bring sufficient tax revenues to pay for the growing public health and care expenditure that longer lifetimes cause? We review studies concerning retirement decisions and pension policies, the role of mortality in health and long-term care costs, and errors in mortality projections. We combine key results into a numerical OLG model where changes in mortality have direct effects both on working careers and on per capita use of health and long-term care services. The model has been calibrated to the Finnish economy and demographics. Although there are huge uncertainties concerning future health and long-term care expenditure when people live longer, our simulations show that without policies directed to disability admission rules and old-age pension eligibility ages, working lives are unlikely to extend sufficiently. But, importantly, with such policies it seems quite possible that generations enjoying longer lifetimes can also pay for the full costs by working longer."