IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdh/ebrief/161.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Main Challenge of Our Times: A Population Growing Younger

Author

Listed:
  • Marcel Boyer

    (CIRANO, Université de Montréal)

  • Sebastien Boyer

    (Collège Jean-de Brébeuf)

Abstract

The real demographic challenge for Canadian policymakers is adapting to a population growing “younger,” after taking increased life expectancies into account, says a report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. In “The Main Challenge of Our Times: A Population Growing Younger,” authors Marcel Boyer and Sébastien Boyer propose an alternative approach to population aging, which measures years to live instead of years since birth. Since 1950, Canadian life expectancy, on average, has increased. For example, a 65-year-old in 2010 had the same life expectancy as a 59.5 year-old in 1950. “Canadians are experiencing increases in longevity and are willing to work longer than previous cohorts,” said Marcel Boyer. “Public policy should aim to provide Canadians with the instruments to better manage retirement decisions.”

Suggested Citation

  • Marcel Boyer & Sebastien Boyer, 2013. "The Main Challenge of Our Times: A Population Growing Younger," e-briefs 161, C.D. Howe Institute.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdh:ebrief:161
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cdhowe.org/public-policy-research/main-challenge-our-times-population-growing-younger
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John B. Shoven, 2007. "New Age Thinking: Alternative Ways of Measuring Age, Their Relationship to Labor Force Participation, Goverment Policies and GDP," NBER Working Papers 13476, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Pierre Lefebvre & Philip Merrigan & Pierre-Carl Michaud, 2011. "The Recent Evolution of Retirement Patterns in Canada," Social and Economic Dimensions of an Aging Population Research Papers 287, McMaster University.
    3. Peter Hicks, 2012. "Later Retirement: the Win-Win Solution," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 345, March.
    4. Warren C. Sanderson & Sergei Scherbov, 2005. "Average remaining lifetimes can increase as human populations age," Nature, Nature, vol. 435(7043), pages 811-813, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William B.P. Robson & Colin Busby & Aaron Jacobs, 2017. "The Fiscal Implications of Canadians’ Working Longer," e-briefs 268, C.D. Howe Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael P. Cameron, 2023. "The measurement of structural ageing – an axiomatic approach," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 1-22, March.
    2. Ediev, Dalkhat M. & Sanderson, Warren C. & Scherbov, Sergei, 2019. "The inverse relationship between life expectancy-induced changes in the old-age dependency ratio and the prospective old-age dependency ratio," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 1-10.
    3. Booth, Heather, 2006. "Demographic forecasting: 1980 to 2005 in review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 547-581.
    4. Nicole Schneeweis & Vegard Skirbekk & Rudolf Winter-Ebmer, 2012. "Does schooling improve cognitive functioning at older ages?," Economics working papers 2012-11, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    5. James MacGee, 2012. "The Rise in Consumer Credit and Bankruptcy: Cause for Concern?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 346, April.
    6. d'Albis, Hippolyte & Collard, Fabrice, 2011. "Age Groups and the Measure of Population Aging," LERNA Working Papers 11.05.339, LERNA, University of Toulouse.
    7. Barbara L. Marshall & Stephen Katz, 2012. "The Embodied Life Course: Post-ageism or the Renaturalization of Gender?," Societies, MDPI, vol. 2(4), pages 1-13, October.
    8. Pappas, Nikos, 2008. "Can Migrants save Greece from Ageing? A Computable General Equilibrium Approach using G-AMOS," SIRE Discussion Papers 2008-04, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    9. Peter Hicks, 2017. "Towards a New Balance in Social Policy: The Future Role of Guaranteed Annual Income within the Safety Net," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 465, January.
    10. Tim Riffe & Pil H. Chung & Jeroen Spijker & John MacInnes, 2016. "Time-to-death patterns in markers of age and dependency," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 14(1), pages 229-254.
    11. Chomik, Rafal & McDonald, Peter & Piggott, John, 2016. "Population ageing in Asia and the Pacific: Dependency metrics for policy," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 5-18.
    12. Warren C. Sanderson, 2010. "Comment on "Adjusting Government Policies for Age Inflation"," NBER Chapters, in: Demography and the Economy, pages 162-168, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. William B.P. Robson & Colin Busby & Aaron Jacobs, 2017. "The Fiscal Implications of Canadians’ Working Longer," e-briefs 268, C.D. Howe Institute.
    14. Daniela Craveiro & Isabel Tiago de Oliveira & Maria Cristina Sousa Gomes & Jorge Malheiros & Maria João Guardado Moreira & João Peixoto, 2019. "Back to replacement migration: A new European perspective applying the prospective-age concept," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(45), pages 1323-1344.
    15. Shulgin, Sergey & Scherbov, Sergey & Zinkina, Yulia & Novikov, Kirill, 2017. "Medical-Demographic Differentiation According to Educational Level," Working Papers 041719, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    16. Jorge M. Uribe & Helena Chuliá & Montserrat Guillen, 2018. "Trends in the Quantiles of the Life Table Survivorship Function," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 34(5), pages 793-817, December.
    17. Hippolyte d'Albis & Fabrice Collard, 2013. "Age groups and the measure of population aging," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 29(23), pages 617-640.
    18. Tim Riffe, 2015. "The force of mortality by life lived is the force of increment by life left in stationary populations," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 32(29), pages 827-834.
    19. Barslund, Mikkel Marten von Werder & von Werder, Marten, 2016. "Measuring ageing and the need for longer working lives in the EU," CEPS Papers 11349, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    20. Van Borm, Hannah & Burn, Ian & Baert, Stijn, 2021. "What Does a Job Candidate's Age Signal to Employers?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic Growth and Innovation;

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cdh:ebrief:161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kristine Gray (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdhowca.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.