Formal and Informal Support Systems for the Elderly in 50 Countries

University Of California Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Populations around the world are aging, and there are growing proportions of the elderly who consume but earn little, on average, with the difference made up by public and private transfers and by asset income. What will be the economic consequences? Standard national income accounts are not disaggregated by age and provide very limited information on private intergenerational transfers. National Transfer Accounts (NTA) uses new methods to construct age specific national accounts, including both public and private transfers, based on existing data sets, and is consistent with standard national accounts. The proposed grant will establish a network for the 37 country teams currently in the NTA project, funding the core activities of Pis and staff, training, and global meetings. Ten to twenty new countries will be brought into the network and trained, bringing the total number of countries to 50 to 60 and adding further contextual diversity and variation in policies, increasing the power of comparative analyses. The Specific Aims are to: 1. Organize, train and assist a global NTA Network of country teams to estimate and analyze National Transfer Accounts based on existing data sources (secondary analyses), and increase contextual diversity and number of data points by recruiting teams from new countries. 2. Fundamentally enrich the scientific content of the accounts by estimating: longitudinal NTA, wealth accounts, accounts disaggregated by socioeconomic status, and gender/time use accounts. 3. Promote and facilitate research by the NTA Network using the data generated in Aims 1 and 2 to improve knowledge and understanding of patterns in aggregate intergenerational relations and the macroeconomic consequences of population aging. 4. Disseminate the data and findings of the NTA Network both within the NTA Network and to non-Network researchers and to policy makers. This is a Multi-PI application, with Drs. Lee and Mason as the PIs.