Here is information from the Financial Times that I filed away last month, but forgot to post. A columnist summarizes the findings of Elisabetta Barbi and associates, who published an article on human mortality in the journal Science, Vol. 360, Issue 6396 (29 June 2018), pp. 1459-1461. If you don’t have a subscription or library access to the journal, it will cost you USD 15 to download the issue in which the full three-page article appears. The report is titled “The plateau of human mortality: Demography of longevity pioneers“, and is based on a study of the more than 3,800 Italians, aged 105 and above, who were living between 2009 and 2015. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘ageing’
the plateau of human mortality
Tuesday, August 14th, 2018longevity insurance (annuities)
Saturday, August 5th, 2017Here is excellent advice from a British expert in personal finance. Longevity risk – the risk of outliving one
elder poverty in Myanmar (Burma)
Tuesday, May 9th, 2017Buddhist teachings have traditionally emphasised respect towards the elderly, and on the surface it seems like family structures are still strong, with 86 per cent of elderly folks reportedly living with family.
But cases of abuse and abandonment are on the rise, so much so that a law was enacted in December 2016 to address the issue. The law sets out to protect the rights, health and economic well-being of the elderly.
Daw Khin Ma Ma is one of the lawyers who worked on drafting the law, and she also runs a nursing home for the elderly who have been abused or abandoned. ….
[She said]
the long lives of South Koreans
Saturday, April 22nd, 2017I somehow missed this interesting column from Bryan Harris, chief of the FT’s Seoul bureau. Asia is amazing. The continent is changing rapidly, and not just in China. (more…)
average and median life expectancy
Wednesday, December 21st, 2016An important unpaid resource of the Financial Times is its stable of intelligent, observant readers. Here is an example. Last week the paper published an op-ed written by British-Indian science journalist Anjana Ahuja.
Today, the FT published the letter of a reader who caught an error in Ms Ahuja’s column.
[Anjana Ahuja] states that
under-consumption in retirement
Friday, September 9th, 2016FT columnist Merryn Somerset Webb worries that “too many people ruin their retirement by deferring their consumption for too long”.
At a meeting of fund managers and wealth managers a few weeks ago, I said that I thought the priority of wealth managers looking after pension savings
the case against mandatory contributions to pension schemes
Tuesday, August 23rd, 2016Two years ago I prepared, for the record, an annotated version of my June 2000 paper
ageing and the sustainability of retirement pensions
Saturday, December 26th, 2015Via Mark Thoma, here is an excellent explanation, by Dean Baker, of why pay-as-you-go pensions financed by payroll taxes are seldom a problem when wages are rising. (more…)
coping with an ageing prison population
Tuesday, October 27th, 2015Growing numbers of incarcerated older men are straining Britain’s cash-strapped penal system.
FT journalist Helen Warrell reports from Rye Hill sex offenders’ prison, where nearly one in five inmates are aged 60 or older.
The Jimmy Savile sexual assault revelations sparked a wave of historic abuse claims [in the UK], leading to a surge in reported historic sex crimes. ….
[P]rosecutions for these past offences
promoting universal pensions in Vietnam
Friday, October 2nd, 2015In 2014, here in Vietnam only 2 million older people received [employment-related] pensions, and around 2.9 million older people received allowances from social assistance programs [i.e. social pensions]. This left some 4.6 million people aged 60 and above uncovered by any social protection scheme ….
Social, public and private pensions must be expanded to increase coverage to the vital informal sector. ….
Not only would a sustainable pension system provide the means for millions of older people to attain a better quality of life, but it would also help ensure their dignity. …. Providing a social pension of US$15 per month for all people aged 65 and above would cost only 0.3% to 0.5% of GDP, which is a very small fraction of Government spending but could have a huge impact on the lives of older people.
Vietnam has worked very hard to increase life expectancy. But this achievement is surely wasted if Vietnamese citizens cannot live these additional years in comfort and in dignity. …. By taking action now we can ensure that retirement is the best, and not the worst years of our lives.
Ritsu Nacken,”The worst of times, or the best?“, Than Nien News, 1 October 2015.
Ms Ritsu Nacken is Acting Representative of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Vietnam.
According to HelpAge International, the government of Vietnam provides social pensions of 180000 Dong (US$8) to 14% of the population aged 60 and older. Six of every seven of these social pensions are given to