Aging and Migration: Micro and Macro Evidence from China

Post-reform China has been experiencing two major demographic changes: an increasingly aging population and an extraordinary surge of rural-urban migrants. The question we ask is: are these two demographic changes related? If yes, then, how? The standard view in the migration literature is that the older the migrant, the lower the likelihood of migration. This paper proposes a simple theory of temporary migration for unskilled labor to fit the context of China. Motivated by our model, we then use both cross-sectional micro data and panel macro data to examine the potential impacts of aging on migration. We find that shifts in China’s age distribution have generated significant changes in the country’s migration patterns: migration will shift to closer provinces (probably switching from interprovincial migration to intra-provincial migration) and will concentrate to a few destination provinces.     

Projected U.S. Demographics and Social Security

Without policy reforms, the aging of the U.S. population is likely to increase the burden of the currently unfunded Social Security and Medicare systems. In this paper we build an applied general equilibrium model and incorporate the population projections made by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to evaluate the macroeconomic and welfare implications of alternative fiscal responses to the retirement of the baby-boomers. Our calculations suggest that it will be costly to maintain the benefits at the levels now promised because the increases in distortionary taxes required to finance those benefits will reduce private saving and labor supply. We also find that the “accounting calculations” made by the SSA underestimate the required fiscal adjustments. Finally, our results confirm that policies with similar long-run characteristics have very different transitional implications for the distribution of welfare across generations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D52, D58, E21, E62.     

中国人口老龄化对消费结构影响的灰色关联度分析

我国目前处于快速老龄化阶段。人口老龄化会对消费结构产生影响。利用灰色系统的理论与方法,通过对不同年龄段人口数与不同消费品消费量间关联度的计算,得出人口老龄化对不同消费品消费造成的影响。在对计算结果分析的基础上,提出为顺利度过人口老龄化,应对消费结构做出调整。     

New trends in population aging and challenges for China’s sustainable development

ABSTRACT

Population aging has increasingly become one of the most urgent problems in China. This paper reveals new trends in population aging in China and possible impacts on social and economic development in the future. We find that China will encounter the largest wave of population aging in the next 30 years, characterized by more individuals among the oldest-olds, more empty-nest elderly, and greater elderly dependency. These trends will impose challenges for China’s sustainable development on the supply and demand sides in the long term. Consequently, it is not only necessary to improve the old-age security system, but also to implement more innovative strategies to deepen human resource development, including among the older population.     

Aging, Public Budgets, and the Need for Policy Reform

Projections show that, without policy changes, population aging will lead to unsustainable developments in public budgets. Various policy options to address this challenge are reviewed. Particular emphasis is given to the incentives to retire early and the programs that generate these incentives. The requirements for labor markets to absorb an added supply of older workers are discussed.     

Demographics and medical care spending: standard and non-standard effects

"In this paper, [the authors] examine the effects of likely demographic changes on medical spending for the elderly. Standard forecasts highlight the potential for greater life expectancy to increase costs: medical costs generally increase with age, and greater life expectancy means that more of the elderly will be in the older age groups. Two factors work in the other direction, however. First, increases in life expectancy mean that a smaller share of the elderly will be in the last year of life, when medical costs generally are very high.... Second, disability rates among the surviving population have been declining in recent years by 0.5 to 1.5 percent annually.... Thus, changes in disability and mortality should, on net, reduce average medical spending on the elderly. However, these effects are not as large as the projected increase in medical spending stemming from increases in overall medical costs."     

多维人口结构变动的交互经济影响——基于老龄化、城镇化和市民化视角的考察

人口年龄结构老龄化、 城乡结构城镇化与户籍结构市民化是中国人口结构变动的三大趋势特征, 并将对中国经济增长产生多重冲击与交互影响. 考察人口多个维度结构变动对经济的综合影响, 对更好地把握人口老龄化背景下的人口经济关系具有重要的理论及现实意义. 本文基于2001—2012年中国省级面板数据对这种交互影响进行了考察. 结果表明, 人口老龄化、城镇化和市民化趋势会对经济增长分别产生负面、 正向以及U型影响. 从交互影响看, 随着人口城镇化与市民化进程的推进, 将有效缓解人口老龄化对经济增长带来的负面影响, 而老龄化程度的加剧会弱化城镇化与市民化对经济增长的正向影响, 市民化则有助于改善城镇化对经济增长的正面影响. 这表明在人口老龄化过程中, 尽早以市民化助推城镇化是实现经济较快增长的有效途径.     

促进“积极老龄化”的战略思考——加强社区老年大学的建设

人口老龄化是一种全球性的不可避免的人口发展趋势,如何实现积极、成功的老龄化,使老年人充分发挥作用,老年教育起着非常重要的作用。发展老年教育也是促进老年人与社会共同发展的重要途径。实现“积极老龄化”,不仅可促进老年人的身心更健康,而且还可挖掘他们的潜力和智慧以贡献于社会。社区“老年大学”是契合中国老年人口特点和教育需求,具有便利性和可及性,能够有效保障老年人受教育权利,改善老年人生存发展现状的教育形式。本文从四个方面对以下问题做了分析：1．中国老龄化的现状;2．社区“老年大学”建设对积极老龄化的重要性;3．我国老年大学的发展特点;4．加强社区“老年大学”建设的具体措施和建议。     

人口老龄化对医疗资源配置的影响分析

运用用人口学方法分析人口老龄化等人口因素对医疗资源配置的影响。由人口特点变化将会带来医疗费用的增长,在人口老龄化的趋势下,未来医疗资源将有近50%的比例用于老年人口,这种变化是对有限医疗资源在配置选择上的一个大挑战。分析了人口特点的变化对医疗机构内不同科室的影响,为医疗机构的规划和发展以及人力资源培训等方面的调整提供参考。     

AGING AND SAVING IN ASIA

In this paper, I analyse the impact of population aging on saving in Asia (with emphasis on Japan and China) and obtain the following findings: population aging will lead to declines in household, private, government and national saving rates, but to the extent that population aging is accompanied by absolute declines in population, investment rates will also decline. Moreover, countries always have the option of borrowing from abroad because all countries, even within the Asian region, will presumably not show simultaneous declines in saving. Therefore, the decline in saving caused by population aging will not necessarily spell disaster.     

人口老龄化影响财政与货币政策的有效性吗?

文章将人口结构、财政支出结构和货币政策引入新凯恩斯动态随机一般均衡框架,重点分析了人口老龄化对我国宏观调控经济政策的影响.研究结果显示:除了人口老龄化自身对经济增长的负面影响,留给宏观调控政策的腾挪空间也越发有限?影响政策调控的有效性,增加政策实施的成本.(1)除了加重财政养老负担,人口老龄化更损害财政刺激效果和财政绩效质量,限制政府实施反周期政策的能力,压缩财政政策发挥的空间;(2)老年人主导的社会对通货膨胀的容忍度将不断下调,势必削弱货币政策刺激总需求能力,增加政策实施成本,迫使中央银行改变货币政策操作方式,可能采取更激进措施以实现相同效果,强化金融脆弱性;(3)相比增加人口生育率,提高劳动参与率既是缓解短期财政养老负担、保障养老融资可持续性的关键,也是有效增加劳动供给、改善政策发挥生态环境,进而提高财政政策与货币政策有效性的权宜之计.     

城市生态学视野下的动态适度人口规模——兼论上海人口发展的基本态势

提出城市适度人口规模不是一个静态的数值,而是动态的过程。不是一个先验的数值,而是系统决定的综合结果。建立了一个适度人口规模的概念性框架,即EFL模型,就是说合理和适度的人口规模是与之相联系的资源环境因素、功能和经济方式、空间区位状态共同决定的结果。生态系统的变动,综合决定了一定时期、一定标准下的城市人口适度规模,并决定了这一适度规模的变化趋势。基于这一思路,讨论了影响上海人口规模变动的积极因素和阻碍因素,从资源环境变化、城市功能变化和城市空间变化三个方面对上海适度人口规模的变动趋势作了基本判断,提出上海人口规模将出现先上升再下降的趋势。根据动态适度人口规模的观点,对城市人口综合调控和城市管理的有关问题提出了一些建议。     

Do changes in demographic characteristics explain declining male employment rates? Examination of the Australian case using a propensity score re-weighting decomposition approach

Using Australian data spanning the period from 1981 to 2001, we apply a propensity score re-weighting decomposition approach to investigate the extent to which the large decline in the male employment population rate over this period can be attributed to changes in socio-demographic characteristics. We find that changes in observed characteristics account for little of the aggregate decline. However, changes in characteristics are found to be important for population sub groups. In particular, changes in partner status and partner employment status have acted to decrease employment rates of younger males, but increase employment rates of older males. A further finding is that, holding observed characteristics constant, there has been a very large decline in the employment rate of 55–64-year-olds with bachelor degree qualifications. In the course of applying the decomposition method, we illustrate that validity of inferences depends on ‘appropriate’ specification of the reweighting function.     

Economic consequences of an aging population

Europe and Japan are experiencing the aging of their populations. Aging implies a restructuring of the economy. Political issues which arise in an aging society include 1) a voting majority for the interests of the elderly, 2) a voting majority of females, 3) the domination of the decision power in corporate and similar ruling bodies, and 4) unemployment or a long wait for promotion for younger people. Economic issues of an aging society include 1) population aging often occurs under reduced rates of growth of per capita national income, 2) the relative economic status of the elderly very much depends on the currently existing tax transfer systems, and 3) the income of families whose head is over age 65 has generally been more unequally distributed than the income for younger families. Issues concerning the labor supply of the elderly include 1) the availability of pension income and health limitations strongly influence decisions to retire and 2) older workers become disheartened and choose early retirement when facing bad reemployment prospects. In general, population aging is likely to have its most substantive effect on the overall level of productivity in an economy where technical knowledge is changing rapidly and strong competition necessitates a high degree of adaptability of the labor force.     

Mandatory retirement and older worker employment

Abstract.  In this paper we take advantage of differences in the legal status of mandatory retirement in Canada across jurisdictions and over time to assess its impact on the share of older people working. The results suggest that making mandatory retirement illegal would have little effect on the size of the older workforce, and therefore such a policy alone would do little to alleviate problems associated with an aging population and the consequent decline in the share of the population employed. JEL Classification: J26, J88     

广东省流动人口的特征及其变化

利用人口普查数据,描述了广东省流动人口的规模、结构、分布、迁移、社会经济等方面的特征及变化。广东省流动人口规模巨大,性别比升高且在各年龄组呈现均衡化趋势,年龄结构老龄化,受教育水平明显提高,地区及区域分布存在较大差异,来源地以外省为主且主要集中于临近的中西部省份,居留时间呈现两极分化且以经济目的为首要迁移原因;同时,流动人口的就业率较高,行、职业分布与户籍人口具有一定的互补性。流动人口的特征及其变化对广东省的社会、经济及人口发展提出了挑战。     

ACCOUNTING FOR POPULATION AGEING IN TAX MICROSIMULATION MODELLING BY SURVEY REWEIGHTING*

This paper investigates the use of sample reweighting, in a behavioural tax microsimulation model, to examine the implications for government taxes and expenditure of population ageing in Australia. First, a calibration approach to sample reweighting is described, producing new weights that achieve specified population totals for selected variables. Second, the performance of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) weights provided with the 2000–2001 Survey of Income and Housing Cost (SIHC) was examined and it was found that reweighting does not improve the simulation outcomes for the 2001 situation, so the original ABS weights were retained for 2001. Third, the implications of changes in the age distribution of the population were examined, based on population projections to 2050. A ‘pure’ change in the age distribution was examined by keeping the aggregate population size fixed and changing only the relative frequencies in different age‐gender groups. Finally, the effects of a policy change to benefit taper rates in Australia were compared for 2001 and 2050 population weights. It is suggested that this type of exercise provides an insight into the implications for government income tax revenue and social security expenditure of changes in the population, indicating likely pressures for policy changes.     

‘MENTAL HEALTH AND EMPLOYMENT OF THE ELDERLY IN TAIWAN: A SIMULTANEOUS EQUATION APPROACH

Longer life expectancy and declining birth rates have contributed to an aging population in many countries. This paper addresses the relationship between mental health and employment status among the elderly in Taiwan. A simultaneous equation system is developed that accommodates the discrete and censored nature of the two endogenous variables. Using data from a nationwide survey of the elderly in Taiwan, we find that older adults with mental illness are less likely to work, while those currently working are less prone to mental illness compared to their unemployed cohort.     

Using the stochastic health state function to forecast healthcare demand and healthcare financing: Evidence from Singapore

Typically, healthcare financing for an ageing population requires projections on healthcare demand and cost. However, projecting healthcare demand based on projected elderly does not consider changes in population health state over time. This paper proposes a new approach to forecast health variables using a stochastic health state function and the well‐established Lee–Carter stochastic mortality model. With the estimated health state at each age over time, we project the hospitalization rate, healthcare demand, and financing cost for Singapore using historical life tables and hospital admission data. Our findings show that while hospital insurance claims increase owing to an aging population, improving health state could save costs from hospital insurance claims. This has policy implications: more attention should be given to preventive healthcare such as health screening to improve the overall health state of the population.     

The impact of the demographic transition on capital formation

"The population of the United States is aging. We review a variety of the implications this has for U.S. national saving rates, and discuss the policy issues that they raise. After reviewing what different models would predict for household saving over the next several decades, we consider how the demographic transition may also affect national saving through changes in government behavior. Ways in which the composition of household saving might change as individuals age are also analyzed along with the implications of changes in government fiscal policy for asset composition."