IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/demeco/v88y2022i1p121-156_4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mortality decline, productivity increase, and positive feedback between schooling and retirement choices

Author

Listed:
  • Cai, Zhipeng
  • Lau, Sau-Him Paul
  • Yuen, C. Y. Kelvin

Abstract

The twentieth century has seen a phenomenal decline in mortality and an increase in productivity level. These two important events likely affect people's choices of schooling years and retirement age. We first show that in a standard life-cycle model, positive feedback exists between optimal schooling years and retirement age choices. We then evaluate the impact of a mortality or productivity shock on an endogenous variable (schooling years or retirement age) by decomposing it into the direct and indirect effects, where the indirect effect arises from feedback from the other endogenous variable. Finally, we extend the model by including the utility benefit of schooling and show that a negative correlation of schooling years and retirement age is possible. Apart from clarifying the apparently similar concepts of positive co-movement and positive feedback, our results have implications relevant to the economic demography literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Cai, Zhipeng & Lau, Sau-Him Paul & Yuen, C. Y. Kelvin, 2022. "Mortality decline, productivity increase, and positive feedback between schooling and retirement choices," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 121-156, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:demeco:v:88:y:2022:i:1:p:121-156_4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S2054089220000334/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J10 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - General
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies

    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:cup:demeco:v:88:y:2022:i:1:p:121-156_4. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/dem .

    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.