Ageing Dynamics of a Human-Capital-Specific Population: the Case of Italy

Research on the effect of rising human capital on the consequences of population aging rarely considers the fact that the elderly population has its own human capital composition achieved through earlier schooling and work experience. Hence, for an elderly population of a fixed size and age-sex composition, the higher its human capital, the higher is the total amount of public pensions to be paid. We construct an old age dependency ratio (OADR) where we assign to each person a number of units corresponding to his/her level of human capital. The dynamics of this human capital-specific OADR is examined using data for Italy. Multistate population methods were utilized for long-term projections to 2107. Under specific conditions, a constant or a moderately increasing human capital may cause aggravation of consequences of population aging rather than their alleviation. We intend to replicate this study for several other European countries where data are available.