Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World

The Capacity to Work at Older Ages

David A. Wise, David A. Wise

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780226442907
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

In recent years, the retirement age for public pensions has increased across many countries, and additional increases are in progress or under discussion in many more. The seventh stage of an ongoing research project studying the relationship between social security programs and labor force participation, Social Security Programs and Retirement around the World: The Capacity to Work at Older Ages explores people's capacity to work beyond the current retirement age. It brings together an international team of scholars from twelve countries—Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States—to analyze this issue. Contributors find that many—but not all—individuals have substantial capacity to work at older ages. However, they also consider how policymakers might divide gains in life expectancy between years of work and retirement, as well as the main impediments to longer work life. They consider factors that influence the demand for older workers, as well as the evolution of health and disability status, which may affect labor supply from the older population.

1

Work Capacity and Longer Working Lives in Belgium

Alain Jousten and Mathieu Lefebvre*

1.1 Introduction

Previous waves of this project studied the effect of financial incentives created by formal and de facto (early) retirement programs on an individual’s decision to retire, the fiscal impact of such behavior, and reforms’ impact thereon. Furthermore, the impact of (early) exits on youth employment and the respective roles of health and program rules as determinants of disability program enrollment have been studied (Dellis et al. 2004; Desmet et al. 2007; Jousten et al. 2010; Jousten, Lefebvre, and Perelman 2012, 2016).

One aspect that most of these papers have essentially bypassed is work-capacity issues. This neglect is all the more striking in a country like Belgium where the public-sphere pension reform debate is to a large degree dominated by such aspects. For example, one often-voiced concern in the debate on prolonging the working life of Belgian workers is that numerous workers do not have the capacity to work longer (even if they wanted or were pushed to) because of physical or mental health and exhaustion problems, or because psychological or material limitations render continued work impossible.

The most extreme incarnation of this concern is the so-called “arduous jobs” discussion that has been raging with particular emphasis since the current coalition government—in power since the middle of 2014—has embarked on a broader pension-reform project targeting longe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• National Bureau of Economic Research
• Relation of the Directors to the Work and Publications of the National Bureau of Economic Research
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Work Capacity and Longer Working Lives in Belgium
• 2. Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages: Evidence from Canada
• 3. Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages in Denmark
• 4. Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages in France
• 5. Healthy, Happy, and Idle: Estimating the Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages in Germany
• 6. Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages: Evidence from Italy
• 7. Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages: Evidence from Japan
• 8. Work Capacity at Older Ages in the Netherlands
• 9. Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages: Evidence from Spain
• 10. Health, Work Capacity, and Retirement in Sweden
• 11. Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages: Evidence from the United Kingdom
• 12. Health Capacity to Work at Older Ages: Evidence from the United States
• Notes
• Contributors
• Author Index
• Subject Index