This study describes the characteristics of the Korean elderly. This study also investigates the population aging in conjunction with social and economic changes in Korea. Finally, this study explores social and economic implications with respect to the current and projected situation of the Korea elderly. Korean society has experienced very rapid changes both in demographic transition and popu...

The potential economic returns to the demographic transition are high. As countries move from a steady state with high mortality and high fertility to an equilibrium with low mortality and fewer children, lower dependency ratios, higher investment in human and physical capital as well as increased female labor force participation contribute to economic growth. In this paper, we analyze the demo...

This article sheds light on the “Europeanisation” of French policy-making – defined as the national adjustment to European integration – and asks whether different policy domains experience the same kind of pressure to adjust. Four sectors representing different policy types are examined: monetary and budgetary policies, public services, agricultural policy and equal employment. This cross-sect...

The HIV epidemic is lowering fertility in sub-Saharan Africa. This decline in fertility appears to reflect a fall in the demand for children, and not any adverse physiological consequences of the disease, as it is matched by changes in the expressed preference for children and the use of contraception, and is not significantly correlated with biological markers of sub-fecundity. A fall in ferti...

Survey of Consumer Finances cross-sectional data from 1973 to 1996 are used in this article to examine Canadian trends in income inequality over the middle and later stages of the life course of a synthetic cohort born between 1922 and 1926. Using Gini coefficients, the findings show that income inequality decreases within a cohort as it grows old; that is, the Canadian retirement income system...

Migration and Urban Poverty and Inequality in China Using data from recent surveys of migrants and local residents in 10 cities in 2005, this paper examines how migration influences measurements of urban poverty and inequality in China, and also compares how other indicators of well-being differ for migrants and local residents. Contrary to previous studies that report that the income poverty r...

The increasing greying of India's population raises concerns about the welfare and health status of the aged. One important source of information of health status of the elderly is the National Sample Survey Rounds on Morbidity and Health Care Expenditure. Using unit-level data for 1995-96 and 2004, this paper examines changes in reported health status of the elderly in India and analyses their...

We study the optimal taxation problem in an economy composed of two-person households (men and women), where agents influence their own old-age dependency prospects through health spending. It is shown that the utilitarian social optimum can be decentralized by means of lump sum transfers from men to women, because women exhibit a higher disability-free life expectancy than men for a given leve...

The aged dependency ratio or ADR is growing at a fast pace in many countries. This fact causes stress to the economy and might create conflicts of interest between young and old. In this paper the properties of different health insurance systems for the elderly are analysed within an overlapping generations (OLG) model. The properties of actuarial health insurance and different variations of pa...