After the identification of several aging patterns (see blog articles on Japan, Sweden, Canada, the United States and France), in this post, we first present a synthetic picture of these aging patterns. We then move one step further to compare across countries the resources generated by economic activities to cover the "dependent" population in society. … Continue reading Facing aging – how employment plays a critical role
In February 2018, INSEE (the French statistical agency) published a remarkable analysis of life expectancy in France in relation to a number of characteristics of the population, such as standard of living, gender, education level and region. Life expectancy in France is one of the highest in the world, so it was enough for me … Continue reading Aging in France: Special challenge of a population of working age that does not grow anymore
I was so much intrigued by Paul Krugman's tweet that I thought I would dig a bit deeper. Knowing that life expectancy differs significantly between men and women, I wanted to see how the picture would look like if one looks at the same difference to the OECD average, but by gender. And I must say I … Continue reading What has changed in the lives (and pattern of death) of American women and men?
A tweet by Paul Krugman, 2008 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, on December 31, 2017 caught my attention. As life expectancy is such an important factor in determining the pace of aging in the population, I thought the United States should have a very distinct population aging pattern. Hence, after looking at aging in Japan, … Continue reading Aging in the United States
Looking back at the year 2017 in statistics, Statistics Canada announced that for the first time in the very long history of the census, "there were more seniors (aged 65 and older) than children (aged 14 and younger)" . This gives us the opportunity to look at the evolution of aging in Canada, with the … Continue reading Aging in Canada
Following a comment from Kenny Petersson on the "Aging in Japan" post, I thought I would have a look at the aging problematic in Sweden, using the same charting and statistics I have presented for Japan. What it reveals is interesting, beyond the natural expectation that it would be quite different. What is the story … Continue reading Aging in Sweden
Demographic changes are tsunami: it flows through all aspects of personal life, social structures, labour market and economy. For the last fifty years and as projected for the next decades for as long as one can make projections, Japan experiences an extended, severe wave of aging. This post looks at the magnitude of the challenge. … Continue reading Aging in Japan: The magnitude of the challenge
Both of us, Patrice and Gatien, have started to read the recent book (May 2016) of Jean Tirole, a French economist, Nobel Prize in Economics in 2014, entitled Economics of the Common Good (published in French: "Économie du bien commun"). In the first pages, we come across a parallel between economics and medicine, that calls … Continue reading The economist and the doctor: Jean Tirole’s parallel and contrast
In Summary A popular approach that economists take to study the use of illegal drugs is the concept of rational addiction. The idea is that individuals willingly choose to consume heroin and other drugs, as they would do with food, goods or services. While this idea is controversial, it allows both researchers and policymakers to … Continue reading Rational Addiction to Heroin and Other Drugs
See note below for original citation On February 10th, 2015, Google announced the development of a new feature in their research engine to guide users towards sound evidence-based health information. It will take the form of a “knowledge graph” , an encyclopedia providing users with information about an illness: from common symptoms to general treatment … Continue reading eHealth governance: Google, dot-health and privatizing the Internet
