IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0268276.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Physiological aging around the World

Author

Listed:
  • Carl-Johan Dalgaard
  • Casper Worm Hansen
  • Holger Strulik

Abstract

We extract data on physiological aging by computing a frailty index for 201 countries over the period 1990–2019. Using panel estimation techniques, we show that the macro frailty index replicates basic regularities previously observed in related studies of aging at the individual level. We then use the frailty index to highlight trends of global physiological aging and its relationship to economic growth. Holding population age structure fixed, the global frailty index has on average increased by about 2 percent over the last 30 years. The average person has therefore aged by what corresponds to about one life-year of physiological aging. This overall trend is relatively similar across different geographical regions. We also document a negative relationship between physiological aging of the workforce and economic growth. According to our preferred specification, a one percent increase in the frailty index of the workforce is associated with a 1.5 percent decline of GDP per capita. This means that average annual growth of labor productivity would have been 0.1 percentage points higher without physiological aging in the period 1990-2019.

Suggested Citation

  • Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Casper Worm Hansen & Holger Strulik, 2022. "Physiological aging around the World," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(6), pages 1-17, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0268276
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0268276
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0268276
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0268276&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0268276?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert C. Feenstra & Robert Inklaar & Marcel P. Timmer, 2015. "The Next Generation of the Penn World Table," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(10), pages 3150-3182, October.
    2. Roozbei Hosseini & Karen Kopecky & Kai Zhao, 2022. "The Evolution of Health over the Life Cycle," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 237-263, July.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2017. "Secular Stagnation? The Effect of Aging on Economic Growth in the Age of Automation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 174-179, May.
    4. Ana Lucia Abeliansky & Holger Strulik, 2018. "How We Fall Apart: Similarities of Human Aging in 10 European Countries," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 341-359, February.
    5. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Manuel Lancastre & Lawrence H. Summers, 2019. "Aging, Output Per Capita, and Secular Stagnation," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 325-342, December.
    6. Mark O’Donovan & Duygu Sezgin & Zubair Kabir & Aaron Liew & Rónán O’Caoimh, 2020. "Assessing Global Frailty Scores: Development of a Global Burden of Disease-Frailty Index (GBD-FI)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-17, August.
    7. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September.
    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. Casper Worm Hansen & Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2023. "Physiological aging and life-cycle labor supply across countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(11), pages 1-22, November.

    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. Lee, Hyun-Hoon & Shin, Kwanho, 2019. "Nonlinear effects of population aging on economic growth," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1-1.
    2. Casper Worm Hansen & Carl-Johan Dalgaard & Holger Strulik, 2023. "Physiological aging and life-cycle labor supply across countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(11), pages 1-22, November.
    3. Emerson, Patrick & Knabb, Shawn & Sirbu, Anca-Ioana, 2024. "Does the old-age dependency ratio place a drag on secular growth?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 1056-1070.
    4. Hellwagner, Timon & Weber, Enzo, 2021. "Labour Market Adjustments to Population Decline," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242455, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    5. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Hansen, Casper Worm & Strulik, Holger, 2018. "Physiological Aging around the World and Economic Growth," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 375, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    6. António Afonso & José Alves & Krzysztof Beck, 2022. "Pay and unemployment determinants of migration flows in the European Union," Working Papers REM 2022/0251, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    7. Volker Grossmann & Johannes Schünemann & Holger Strulik, 2024. "Fair Pension Policies with Occupation-Specific Ageing," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(663), pages 2835-2875.
    8. Murach, Michael & Wagner, Helmut & Kim, Jungsuk & Park, Donghyun, 2022. "Trajectories to high income: Comparing the growth dynamics in China, South Korea, and Japan with cointegrated VAR models," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 492-511.
    9. Andrzej Cieślik & Oleg Gurshev, 2021. "Factor Endowments, Economic Integration, Round-Tripping, and Inward FDI: Evidence from the Baltic Economies," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-26, July.
    10. Ana Lucia Abeliansky & Holger Strulik, 2023. "Health and aging before and after retirement," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 2825-2855, October.
    11. David I. Stern, 2017. "The environmental Kuznets curve after 25 years," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 7-28, April.
    12. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    13. Rainer Kotschy & David E. Bloom & Andrew J. Scott & Rainer Franz Kotschy, 2024. "On the Limits of Chronological Age," CESifo Working Paper Series 11451, CESifo.
    14. Ruba Abdullah Aljarallah, 2020. "The Economic Impacts of Natural Resource Dependency in Gulf Countries," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 10(6), pages 36-52.
    15. Wanniarachchi, Sasindu Lakruwan, 2020. "The Nexus among External Debt and Economic Growth: Evidence from South Asia," OSF Preprints ghfdb, Center for Open Science.
    16. Bruns, Stephan B. & Ioannidis, John P.A., 2020. "Determinants of economic growth: Different time different answer?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    17. Zoltan J. Acs & Saul Estrin & Tomasz Mickiewicz & László Szerb, 2018. "Entrepreneurship, institutional economics, and economic growth: an ecosystem perspective," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 51(2), pages 501-514, August.
    18. Bloom, David E. & Chen, Simiao & Kuhn, Michael & McGovern, Mark E. & Oxley, Les & Prettner, Klaus, 2020. "The economic burden of chronic diseases: Estimates and projections for China, Japan, and South Korea," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    19. Badgett, M.V. Lee & Waaldijk, Kees & Rodgers, Yana van der Meulen, 2019. "The relationship between LGBT inclusion and economic development: Macro-level evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 1-14.
    20. Bernard Njindan Iyke, 2018. "The real effect of currency misalignment on productivity growth: evidence from middle-income economies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(4), pages 1637-1659, December.

    More about this item

    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:plo:pone00:0268276. 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.