Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages in Denmark / Paul Bingley, Nabanita Datta Gupta, Peder Pedersen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bingley, Paul.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Gupta, Nabanita Datta.

Pedersen, Peder.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22018.

NBER working paper series no. w22018

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

Longevity is increasing and many people are spending a greater proportion of their lives reliant on pensions to support consumption. In response to this, several countries have mandated delays to age of first entitlement to pension benefits in order to reduce incentives to retire early. However, it is unknown to what extent older individuals have the health capacity to sustain the longer working lives that delayed pension benefits may encourage. We estimate the health capacity to work longer in Denmark by comparing how much older individuals work today with how much those with similar mortality rates worked in the past, and how much younger individuals today with similar self-assessed health work. We find substantial health capacity for longer working lives among those currently aged 55 and above. We also find significant heterogeneity by education and gender. Those with a high school degree have the greatest additional work capacity, women have more additional capacity than men, especially women with a college degree.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2016.