Category: Research

This special issue of the Journal of the Economics of Ageing brings together research at the intersection of health, ageing, and longevity from an economic perspective. As populations worldwide experience unprecedented shifts in demographic structures, the economic implications of ageing are becoming increasingly central to policy and practice. The issue explores topics such as the…

This paper examines the macroeconomic impact of chronic disease in the United Kingdom (UK). We use individual-level data to estimate how diagnoses of six major diseases affect labor market transitions and combine these with a tractable growth model with age-specific productivity and labor force participation to quantify the impact of chronic disease on UK economic…

Using a novel, flexible and easily interpretable dynamic Bayesian state space model, we analyze historic and future longevity trends across 18 high income countries over the last one hundred years and 16 large population emerging markets from 1950. Our results show the key driver of global life expectancy is now late-life mortality whose importance is…

On the Limits of Chronological Age Analysis of population aging is typically framed in terms of chronological age. However, chronological age itself is not necessarily deeply informative about the aging process. This paper reviews literature and conducts empirical analyses aimed at investigating whether chronological age is a reliable proxy for physiological functioning when used in…

Growing life expectancy and a rising proportion of older people make the issue of whether cohorts are ageing better a key individual, social and economic issue. Using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing we characterise how frailty develops with age, how this differs across demographic groups, whether more recent cohorts are ageing better…

Global life expectancy now stands at 71 years compared with 30 years in 1870. This fact increases the need to understand how we age and how that impacts our economic decision making. It also raises the issue of how we should change our life cycle behaviours, policies and institutions to adapt to these longer lives.…

Global life expectancy now stands at 71 years compared with 30 years in 1870. This fact increases the need to understand how we age and how that impacts our economic decision making. It also raises the issue of how we should change our life cycle behaviours, policies and institutions to adapt to these longer lives.…

In 1990, one in five U.S. workers were aged over 50 years whereas today it is one in three. One possible explanation for this is that occupations have become more accommodating to the preferences of older workers. We explore this by constructing an “age-friendliness” index for occupations. We use Natural Language Processing to measure the…

As the demographic transition enters a new stage of a longevity transition, focus needs to extend beyond an ageing society towards a longevity society. An ageing society focuses on changes in the age structure of the population, whereas a longevity society seeks to exploit the advantages of longer lives through changes in how we age.…

The fact that people are on average living healthier, longer lives than previously has the potential to be positive for the economy, offsetting the negative economic effects of an ageing society. A longevity economy will see a shift in the mix of sectors in the economy, with both health and education expanding further and new…