Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Population Developments in a Global Context
- 3 Pension Options, Motivations and Choices
- 4 Pension Structures and the Implications of Aging
- 5 Retirement Systems and the Economic Costs of Aging
- 6 Beyond Pensions to Health Care Considerations
- 7 Labor Supply and Living Standards
- 8 Too Many Wants or Too Few Workers?
- 9 Alternatives to Finding More Workers
- 10 Aligning Retirement Policy with Labor Needs
- 11 Funding Pensions and Securing Retiree Claims
- 12 Macroeconomic Policies for Improved Living Standards
- 13 Risks Associated with Alternative Public Policies
- 14 Roadmap to the Future
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Population Developments in a Global Context
- 3 Pension Options, Motivations and Choices
- 4 Pension Structures and the Implications of Aging
- 5 Retirement Systems and the Economic Costs of Aging
- 6 Beyond Pensions to Health Care Considerations
- 7 Labor Supply and Living Standards
- 8 Too Many Wants or Too Few Workers?
- 9 Alternatives to Finding More Workers
- 10 Aligning Retirement Policy with Labor Needs
- 11 Funding Pensions and Securing Retiree Claims
- 12 Macroeconomic Policies for Improved Living Standards
- 13 Risks Associated with Alternative Public Policies
- 14 Roadmap to the Future
- Index
Summary
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
William Shakespeare From “As You Like It”Shakespeare's seven ages of life begin with youth and progress through old age, which he describes as a period of second childhood when we live in oblivion, our senses largely gone. In Shakespeare's day in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, few people survived to an age we would today consider the seventh stage of life, as life expectancy at birth would have been between 25 and 30 years. Of those who made it to old age, many had to continue working until shortly before their death in order to meet their basic needs. Today, life expectancy is three times that of Shakespeare's era in the developed world and is nearing that in many of the developing countries. And when most people reach the final stage of their lifetimes today, what we now call retirement, their senses are still vitally intact and their lives are not all that different than those they lived before crossing into old age. But as our life expectancies have lengthened, our societies have grown older. As we look to the future, we expect them to grow older still.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Economic Implications of Aging SocietiesThe Costs of Living Happily Ever After, pp. 1 - 7Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005