查看文章

The last phase of the demographic transition brings low fertility and low mortality. The resulting age structure loses its pyramid shape, and more resembles a cylinder. The population ages. The median age person of the eight Central and Eastern European countries discussed in this chapter (from north to south Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Hungary, and Slovenia, referred to hereafter as CEE8) will grow 9.0 years older, from 39.4 years to 48.4 years, between 2015 and 2045.1 This chapter focuses on one of the two drivers of this aging process: falling mortality. Whereas in the past gains in life expectancy were concentrated in infancy and childhood, resulting in higher youth dependency, recent improvements are skewed to older ages (Eggleston and Fuchs 2012). Such a development would raise the old-age dependency ratio should the demarcation age between the active section of the life cycle and old age be fixed. This chapter demonstrates that this is not the case, at least not in the CEE8. It shows that the effective age of retirement, a key driver of the demarcation age in question, increased fast enough throughout the region to keep life expectancy at the effective retirement age constant.

Perhaps unusual for an analysis of pension developments, the potential causes are not sought in pension policies but in past investments in human capital. Empirical evidence is used to make a case for connecting recent developments in pensions with historical developments in education.“Life Expectancy at the Effective Retirement Age” supports the following statements with empirical evidence: