Population ageing and intergenerational relations

One of the competing theories in the positive constitutional economics literature explaining peaceful extension of suffrage by elites (Voigt 2011) is that the elites weigh their own loss of franchise against the policies that are likely to be more favoured if franchise is extended. The objective of this paper is to directly test whether this “trade-off” exists by analyzing a survey of Japanese voters who were asked about their attitude to allowing parents to cast proxy votes on behalf of their children (referred to as Demeny Voting , DV) and policy preference. We examine whether the motivation of voters to support DV is related to their own policy priorities.

We find that the survey respondents who would not be eligible for extra votes, but who consider child-support as a priority are significantly more likely to support franchise extension. This suggests that elite voters whose policy priorities might be served by franchise extension, but whose own voting power would be diminished, nonetheless may favour an extension.

Our results are the first test of Demeny’s contention that franchise extension could advance pro-natal policies. Our results also offer direct support to the theoretical research which posits that peacable franchise extension might be motivated by policy priorities of voters.

In France, driving license holders have doubled for the last 35 years. The action of ageing of the population combined with the acquisition for a lifetime of a driving license are two main reasons for this increase. As a result, seniors are more likely to have a driver's license.
The first aim of this paper is to analyze the distribution of driving licenses of the French population throughout the last 40 years according to gender and age. The younger the generation, the higher the number of driving license holders. But has the main cause of access to driving licenses always to do with generational issues? We show that the number of driving license holders is now mainly influenced by an age effect rather than a generational effect for men while this number is still dominated by a generational effect for women.
The largest increase in the motorization rate since 1973 was carried out in households headed by a retired person. The second aim of this paper is to analyze the increase of the seniors' motorization and behavioral changes that result of this increase. There are more retired people on roads than before plus they are as dependant of cars as they were when they used to work.

According to 2010 census, elderly person comprise 5.6 percent of Mongolia’s population and projected to increase 10.8 percent in 2025. “Oldest old” (70+) comprises about 2.3 percent in 2010 and will increase to 4.5 percent in 2030. At present, life expectancy reached 72.3 years for female and 64.9 percent for male and expected to be 77.6 years for female and 73.1 years for men in 2030.

The process of ageing is likely to bring extra burden on the national budget due to increased expenditure health care, retirement and pension benefits. In 2012, 8 percent of the GDP and 11.5 percent of the government revenue spent for elderly population. Traditionally, older persons have relied for income on their own earnings, family transfer payments and government handouts both in the form of social pensions and subsidies. Though the tradition of adult offspring and other relatives providing support for older persons remain strong, this support is rapidly shrinking as a result of declining family sizes. Objective of my paper will address intergenerational relation issue diving into three parts such as formal support, family support and community support.

Keywords: Ageing, intergenerational transfer, formal, family and community support.

The role of the national health systems is to provide health for their citizens but each country achieves it up to a different degree. The health systems are heterogeneous not only in their efficiency but in their funding, organization and management too. As it is difficult to measure their efficiency in absolute terms, the countries can be compared with each other. The relative efficiency of health systems can be measured by the life expectancy that they provide by taking education level and their funding structure into account. Based on data coming from the HMD, GGS, OECD and WHO, data envelopment analysis is used to explore the relative efficiencies of the countries.

Introduction: WHO defines health as a state of mental, physical and social wellbeing. However, there have been limited detailed evidences that systematically assessed the chronological relationships between these three health aspects and long-term care (LTC) needs.
Method: Among the urban dwelling elderly aged 65 years and over, data were collected through self-reported questionnaire in 2001 and 2004 in Tokyo. Ultimately, 8,126 respondents were included in the analysis. Exploratory factor analysis and Structural Equation Model (SEM) method was adopted in the analysis.
Results: By using exploratory factor analysis, 3 factors, named ’mental health’,’ physical health’, ‘social health’ , were defined as latent variables, respectively. The SEM analysis indicated significant direct but negative correlations between ‘physical health 2001’ and ‘LTC needs 2004’. In contrast, ‘mental health 2001’ and ‘social health 2001’ had little direct effects on ‘LTC needs 2004’. Meanwhile, we also observed an indirect effect of ‘mental health 2001’ on ‘LTC needs 2004’ through ‘physical health 2001’.
Conclusions: This study illustrates that the LTC needs is mainly confirmed by physical health, followed by mental and social health. It suggests that maintenance of good physical health may be entirely crucial to decrease the LTC needs.

Objectives: to know the relationship between self-care time and life expectancy. Methods: to calculate self-care time and its proportion in life expectancy. Results: the proportions of Disability-Adjusted Life Expectancy and Dementia-Adjusted Life Expectancy in life expectancy show downward trend with age growth. The proportion of dementia declines fast by comparison. Conclusions: the calculation of Disability-Adjusted Life Expectancy and Dementia-Adjusted Life Expectancy both support morbidity expansion theory, in the background of life extension, we should pay more attention to quality of life among the elderly.

With the heterogeneous distribution of knowledge-intensive occupations throughout Mexican cities, it is natural to ask what drives sectors of society to establish in one place or another. Whether responding to access to resources necessary to develop activities, the sense of ‘belonging’ somewhere or the availability of a particular desired service, it is evident that some regions amass larger quantities of human capital than others. How is the human capital distributed over the urban areas in Mexico? What significant differences can be found between age, gender, schooling and experience of the workforce? In this study, 56 metropolitan cities are considered and studied as members of a proposed network with 18 regional nodes. Work is carried out to try and support or refute that education services appropriately represented by this network. It is shown that higher level educational institutions are clustered in some regions of the country thus may not necessarily conform to where the human capital is located. Furthermore, this is explored by means of educational attainment for males and females and different cohorts in a 10-year span for the general population and for those in or with a graduate degree. Finally, the relationship between the regional nodes, educational offer and migration flows is studied.

Abstract: Title: Ageing in Mauritius experienced a rapid demographic transition in the 1960’s, resulting in an ageing population. Options for Mauritius 1. Adopt a pro-population strategy to achieve higher working age population 2. Reduce pensions to the aged to lower the “burden” of the Ageing population 3. Introduce measures for continued employment of 60+ in the formal and non formal sectors and keep the ‘Aged Productive’ or “Cost Efficient”. The Study will provide (i) financial/other details of the ageing issue up to 2050; (ii) obtain public opinion on the ageing issue, and (iii) alternates based on survey and desk study. Based on the 1960 population explosion experience, private associations should be roped in for solving the Ageing issue. Such a study could be the first in Africa. The project will include a survey and a detailed desk study on the items included in each of the options. Some data are already available. Option 1 and 2 are untenable on environmental and social justice grounds. Option 3 is environmentally sustainable and could be socially acceptable. The challenge - Extend the productive/efficiency status of the 60 + population

Background. We investigate individual-level variations across Europe in grandparental childcare and whether key family cultures and labour market structures are important for shaping the role grandparents play in family life.
Methods and Data. We use data from two comparable European surveys (SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe; and ELSA, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing) and macro-level indicators (such as proportion of mothers not in paid work) to investigate personal, familial and institutional characteristics associated with grandparental care across 11 European countries. Multilevel analysis was used to examine to what extent a country’s cultural-contextual environment and individual-level characteristics help to explain variations in intensive grandparent childcare.
Results. Our preliminary findings show that grandparents in poor health, who are older than 70 and who are in paid work are less likely to provide childcare. However, socio-economic and demographic characteristics do not fully explain the dramatic differences observed across Europe in the prevalence of intensive grandparental childcare. Our analyses support the hypothesis that cultures and structures (which in turn influence policies) shape the extent to which grandparents provide intensive childcare across Europe.

One of the main social effects of extension of life is the extended period of widowhood for many Indian women. According to 2001 Census, there are 34 million widows in India constituting 6 percent of the total female population and 52 percent of the women over the age of 60 years. The living arrangement of the elderly widows is seen as a parameter of great importance in understanding their status after widowhood. Using the data collected from field survey of 300 elderly widows from rural Jharkhand, the paper tries to examine whether the living arrangements of elderly widows have any bearing on the status of their psychological condition. The study found that thirteen percent of the elderly widows are living alone or ‘left behind’, which show their changed status in family after becoming widow. Around one fourth of elderly widows reported that their children took decision regarding their living arrangements. It has also found that some of the elderly widows were not so happy with their present living arrangements but they are forced to stay. Majority complained of “loneliness” and “lack of care” from the family indicating the extent of frustration among them. 31 percent of young-old widows were severely depressed. The elderly widows who are living alone, around 36 percent are severely depressed.