The New Demographic Transition: Most Gains in Life Expectancy Now Realized Late in Life

Abstract

The share of increases in life expectancy realized after age 65 was only about 20 percent at the beginning of the 20th century for the US and 16 other countries at comparable stages of development; but that share was close to 80 percent by the dawn of the 21st century, and is almost certainly approaching 100 percent asymptotically. This new demographic transition portends a diminished survival effect on working life. For high-income countries at the forefront of the longevity transition, expected lifetime labor force participation as a percent of life expectancy is declining. Innovative policies are needed if societies wish to preserve a positive relationship running from increasing longevity to greater prosperity.

Contribution of Increased Life Expectancy to Economic Growth: Evidence From Cee Countries

“…While these two claims are difficult to reconcile in linear terms, Echevarria (2004) claims that life expectancy's effect on real output has an inverted U pattern, which contains a top threshold that is between 45 and 50 years. This is confirmed by Eggleston (2012) and corresponds to peak contribution ages detailed by Poterba (2001) and Goyal (2004).…”

The influence of age on the take-over of vehicle control in highly automated driving

“…Therefore, take-over time and similar dependent variables could be confounded with the trust in automation and statistically controlling this attitude could be a promising way to clarify influence factors in the take-over process in future studies. With increasing life expectancy (Eggleston & Fuchs, 2012), drivers beyond the age range used in this study (upper end of 79 years of age) are becoming more common. Therefore, it is reasonable to include drivers above the age of 80 years in a future study.…”

Retirement Security in an Aging Population

“…The corresponding values for the 1900 birth cohort were 1.1 and 2.9 percent. Eggleston and Fuchs (2012) observe that prospectively, most of the extension of life length is likely to be due to reductions in mortality rates at older ages, which implies continued growth in the population share accounted for by the "oldest old. "…”