Search Results (140)

Background/Objectives: Population aging represents a major social and public health challenge in Latin America. Mexico has made significant advances in regulatory and policy frameworks. Notable progress includes accession to the Inter-American Convention on Protecting the Human Rights of Older Persons (IACPHROP). It also includes the enactment of the Law on the Rights of Older Persons, and institutional reforms for social and cultural inclusion. This review evaluates Mexico’s alignment of aging policies with IACPHROP standards using an integrated framework of social determinants, policies, and legal obligations. This approach has not been previously reported for Mexico. Methods: Searches were conducted in electronic databases and official repositories. These included the World Health Organization, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Human Rights System, and Mexican government regulations. Additional searches were performed in PubMed, Redalyc, SciELO, and Google Scholar. Results: Advances include universal non-contributory pensions, the expansion of healthcare coverage, and social inclusion programs. Important policy areas remain to be addressed, including the establishment of a national long-term care system, and the reduction of regional disparities in health coverage. In addition, the evidence linking specific policies to improve health outcomes remains heterogeneous. Conclusions: Mexico has built a solid foundation for the protection of older adults’ rights. The development of a long-term care system and the adoption of place-based approaches are also essential. Regional cooperation and community traditions play a pivotal role in achieving dignified, inclusive, and sustainable aging. Full article

Background: Rural older women in China face intersecting disadvantages including eroded family support, limited pension coverage, and high social isolation that elevate depressive symptoms. Although Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCI) has expanded rapidly since 2016 to provide both financial protection and formal care services for older adults, whether it can compensate for depleted informal support and protect mental health among this vulnerable population remains unknown. Methods: We used five waves of CHARLS (2011–2020) with 2193 rural women aged ≥60. We employed a staggered difference-in-differences design, complemented by moderation analysis, heterogeneity tests, and time-dependent survival analysis. Robustness checks included Callaway-Sant’Anna DID, placebo permutation and baseline exclusion sensitivity. Results: LTCI reduced depression scores by 0.45 points (β = −0.447, p = 0.028) and depression onset hazard by 36.1% (HR = 0.639, p = 0.009). Benefits were compensatory, concentrated among women lacking regular emotional and financial support from children and those with high social isolation. Heterogeneity analyses demonstrated a pronounced age gradient and a significant education gradient, while care-need and disability subgroups showed directionally consistent but underpowered effects. These findings were robust to supplementary sensitivity checks, including Callaway-Sant’Anna DID, placebo permutation, and baseline-depressed exclusion. Conclusions: LTCI confers meaningful mental health protection for rural older women through compensatory pathways that substitute for depleted informal support. However, benefits are concentrated among younger-old and more-educated women, raising equity concerns. Gender-sensitive implementation with mental health screening, targeted outreach for less-educated women, and community-based enrollment assistance is essential to ensure policy equity. Full article

The classic tripartite life-course model (education, work, and retirement) is under increasing pressure from rising longevity and structural labour-market change. This study examines how Millennials and Generation Z in Portugal conceptualise retirement and the life course, asking whether these cohorts adhere to a standardised, sequential logic or aspire to more fluid, multi-stage trajectories, and whether observed differences reflect generation or socioeconomic position. A cross-sectional survey of 234 participants aged 18–43 assessed perceptions of retirement, openness to non-linear life cycles, future concerns, preparation strategies, and orientations towards lifelong learning. Responses were analysed using non-parametric tests (Mann–Whitney U, Kruskal–Wallis) and multivariate linear regression, with outcomes stratified by income, education, and occupational status. Participants showed a widespread preference for greater flexibility around the tripartite sequence rather than its abandonment, the statutory retirement age persisting as a reference point. Trust in the public pension system was low and cross-cutting, with over 70% doubting its capacity to ensure an adequate retirement, while Generation Z reported significantly greater concern about losing professional purpose. Socioeconomic position was a more consistent stratifier than generation for financial preparation, which rose with income and education; distrust, by contrast, was predicted by neither socioeconomic position nor generation in multivariate models. These findings indicate that biographical deinstitutionalisation may already be underway among younger Portuguese cohorts, with structural risks increasingly individualised, carrying implications for the redesign of life-course policies and social protection systems in an era of longevity. Full article

Service provision often requires financing that does not coincide with the normal transaction activity of the current fiscal year. The deferred outflow is a method that allows for both policy implementation and funding transparency. No previous research exists concerning the practice of deferred outflow utilization and the impact of these resources on future funding activities. This study examines the levels of deferred outflows among county governments in North Carolina. Preliminary findings indicate a very high level of outflows dedicated to pension-related programs for employees who provide services in traditional government activities. A logistic regression analysis suggests the total number of employees, an overall increase in net position from the previous year, and the presence of more personnel who perform accounts payable activities were all significantly related to elevated levels of deferred outflows. Findings also suggest that smaller governments were more likely to increase deferred outflow resources at a higher rate on an annual basis. Implications of the study include the importance of proper budgeting and fund accounting for employee post-service and the need for experienced finance personnel staff that can adequately implement transactions and compile comprehensive audits. Full article

Domestic violence against women is a severe problem in Brazil and worldwide. The Brazilian system presents innovative policies aimed at women’s access to justice, which have not yet been systematized or empirically examined. This article aims to identify, analyze, and categorize the main policies for access to justice for victims of domestic violence in Brazil. Methods used are documentary analysis and data collection were conducted. Data were requested from public institutions and collected from 27 state governments and the federal government. As results, the research found that, in addition to access to justice policies commonly adopted worldwide—such as emergency protective measures, risk assessment forms, call centers for women, and panic buttons, Brazil has implemented several innovations, particularly: (i) multidisciplinary care centers, (ii) specialized police stations, (iii) shelters and rental assistance, (iv) employment quotas, (v) special pensions for orphans, and (vi) aesthetic repair. In conclusion: (i) the ten public policies are effective and have benefited millions of women in Brazil; (ii) there is a need to coordinate these policies, assess their effectiveness, and consolidate data; (iii) new technologies offer opportunities to develop tools that facilitate access to justice and prevent and redress domestic violence; and (iv) these policies may be adopted by other countries, with appropriate contextual adaptations. Full article

Population aging in middle-income economies produces macroeconomic and distributional consequences that aggregate frameworks cannot detect. This paper develops a multi-household CGE model calibrated to a 26-sector Social Accounting Matrix for Thailand (2024) and traces the labor, saving, and fiscal channels of aging across eleven counterfactual scenarios. Three findings emerge. First, aging’s primary macroeconomic cost operates through capital accumulation, not output contraction: investment falls seven times faster than the GDP under a savings-driven closure, because middle-aged households—the economy’s dominant net savers—compress lifecycle saving in response to aging. The saving channel alone amplifies the labor supply shock four-fold (range: 3.5–4.5). Second, aging can raise elderly welfare. When elderly households retain labor market attachment, wage gains from tighter factor markets outweigh declining capital returns—a welfare reversal invisible to representative agent and OLG frameworks by construction. The critical labor income threshold is ${\alpha }_L^{\ast }=35.5\%$ (range: 34.8–36.2%), confirmed across all participation increments tested (elderly welfare gain: THB 341–521 million). Third, no single instrument satisfies efficiency and equity simultaneously. Pension transfers crowd out investment nonlinearly above 12 percent of tax revenue (range: 10–14%); health demand expansion is the decisive complement that converts redistribution into a near-Pareto improvement. Policy complementarity is an empirical necessity, not a theoretical refinement. Collectively, these results reframe demographic aging as a factor price redistribution mechanism whose welfare incidence is determined by the cohort-level income composition—with direct implications for aging policy in middle-income economies facing rapid demographic transitions under tighter fiscal constraints than for advanced economies encountered at equivalent demographic stages. Full article

Population ageing, declining fertility, and falling real interest rates have widened the global pension gap and increased fiscal pressure on pay-as-you-go systems worldwide. These structural challenges are compounded in Ukraine by an extreme demographic shock caused by war, large-scale migration, excess mortality, and a sharp contraction in GDP. This study evaluates the financial resilience and long-term sustainability of the Ukrainian pension system over 2015–2023 and assesses alternative development trajectories under heightened uncertainty. The methodology integrates demographic analysis with financial sustainability assessment and risk management approaches. A composite Sustainability Index is constructed from nine sub-indices that capture the structural, demographic, and economic dimensions of pension system performance. Scenario modelling is applied to simulate three reform pathways: structural transformation through expansion of the funded pillar, demographic adjustments, and accelerated economic recovery. The findings suggest that structural diversification of the pension system, combined with labour market formalisation and macroeconomic stabilisation, represents the most effective strategy for strengthening resilience. The study contributes to the literature on pension sustainability by conceptualising demographic shock as a systemic risk factor and by positioning pension reform within a broader financial risk management framework. Policy implications extend beyond Ukraine to other ageing economies exposed to turbulence. Full article

As the European population ages, the sustainability of pension systems faces a trilemma: the structural conflict between achieving benefit adequacy, fiscal stability, and labor market flexibility. This study investigates the primary research hypothesis that these three objectives involve trade-offs under current institutional designs. We examine the structural interrelationships between economic development, population health, and institutional pension characteristics across the EU’s 27 member states. Using cross-sectional data from Eurostat and the OECD from 2023, the study employs a multivariate framework, including Multiple Factor Analysis (MFA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA), to visualize latent trade-offs. Non-parametric statistical tests were applied to validate structural differences between the Nordic, Continental, Southern, and Central and Eastern European (CEE) welfare regimes. The paper’s central argument is that pension sustainability is less a demographic inevitability and more a path-dependent result of institutional “exit cultures” and regional health-wealth traps. The analysis explains 56.7% of the total variance across two primary dimensions, revealing a persistent east–west divide where GDP per capita and Healthy Life Years (HLYs) at age 65 are strongly coupled. Additionally, the analysis identified a fundamental sustainability trade-off: countries with higher pension expenditures and replacement rates, such as those in the Southern and Continental clusters, have significantly earlier labor market exit ages. Statistical evidence shows that the gender pension gap is the most significant factor in differentiating welfare regimes, with the CEE region showing significantly lower inequality than the Western cluster. Ultimately, the findings contribute to public administration literature by demonstrating that policy interventions must prioritize addressing the culture of early retirement in Western countries and the health-wealth trap in Eastern countries to ensure long-term viability. Full article

Population aging is widely regarded as a major fiscal risk for European welfare states and a central challenge to long-term fiscal sustainability. The article critically reexamines the deterministic assumption by assessing whether the fiscal implications of demographic aging in the European Union (EU) are mechanically driven or conditioned by policy context and institutional capacity. Using panel data for the EU-27 over the period 2014–2024, the study employs a two-way fixed-effects framework and interaction models to examine the relationship between demographic aging and key fiscal outcomes, including public pension expenditures, total social protection spending, and the general government balance. Furthermore, the analysis examines whether indicators associated with the silver economy, such as employment at older ages and digital inclusion, condition the fiscal effects of aging within countries over time. The results suggest that demographic aging does not exhibit a statistically significant association with pension or social protection expenditures once institutional heterogeneity and common shocks are controlled. In contrast to deterministic expectations, aging is positively associated with general government balance, suggesting the presence of policy-mediated fiscal adjustment dynamics rather than automatic fiscal deterioration. Interaction estimates further indicate that digital inclusion among older cohorts conditions the relationship between demographic aging and fiscal balance, while silver economy indicators do not display robust standalone fiscal effects. These findings should be interpreted as evidence of policy-mediated adjustment dynamics rather than as causal estimates of demographic effects. Building on these findings, the article advances a conceptual interpretation of the aging–fiscal nexus in which demographic pressures interact with institutional adaptation and policy capacity. Fiscal sustainability under demographic aging emerges as a policy-mediated outcome that may reflect broader institutional and governance contexts, rather than demographic structure alone. While governance quality is not directly estimated as an observable variable, the analysis interprets fiscal outcomes within a governance-conditioned institutional framework that emphasizes policy mediation rather than deterministic demographic effects. The findings contribute to ongoing debates on fiscal sustainability in aging societies by demonstrating that fiscal outcomes in the European Union are best understood as institutionally conditioned and policy-mediated rather than mechanically driven by demographic structure alone. Full article

Rural households’ risky financial asset selection (RFAS) is the foundation of households’ diversified asset allocation, which in turn helps expand their sources of property income. However, rural households rarely participate in risky financial markets due to limited participation access and a lack of financial knowledge and market information. Digital Village Construction (DVC) has brought new opportunities for a change in this phenomenon. This study determines the impact of DVC on RFAS using data on 5593 rural households from the 2020 China Family Panel Studies and County Digital Village Index. The findings show that DVC significantly increases the likelihood, amount, and rate of rural households’ RFAS. However, the impact of DVC varies across its different dimensions. Specifically, the development of digital infrastructure, digital economy, and digital lifestyles each exerts a significant positive effect on RFAS, whereas digital governance does not show a statistically significant impact—likely due to the underdevelopment or inefficiencies of current digital governance platforms. Mechanism analyses reveal that DVC promotes rural households’ RFAS by improving farmers’ access to information and expanding their market participation opportunities, while rural households’ education expenditure and pension income uncertainties weaken this positive effect. Heterogeneity analyses suggest that the impact of DVC on rural households’ RFAS is more pronounced among young families, those with lower education levels, and high-income families. With the projected advancement of digital villages in China, this study offers crucial guidance for implementing policies, such as the Digital Village Construction Guidelines, by guiding rural households toward more rational and inclusive participation in risky financial markets. Full article

Form ADV regulatory disclosures made by mutual fund management firms indicate that nearly one-third of investment advisers to mutual funds offer pension consulting services to defined contribution plans, creating inherent conflicts of interest that allow advisers to recommend their own affiliated funds to plan sponsors. Using the complete universe of Form ADV filings merged with CRSP mutual fund data, I examine how these retirement plan conflicts affect mutual fund portfolio management and performance over the period 2003 to 2014. In contrast to prior studies that relied on hand-collected plan-level data and focused on participant outcomes, this study provides fund-level evidence using comprehensive regulatory disclosures to assess how such conflicts affect managerial incentives. I found that equity mutual funds managed by conflicted advisers exhibited widespread underperformance and were managed to a significantly lesser extent, consistent with weakened incentives arising from sticky defined contribution assets. The effects were economically larger for target date mutual funds, which played a central role as default investment options in retirement plans. The results have important policy implications, suggesting that disclosure alone may be insufficient to mitigate conflicts of interest and highlighting the need for stronger fiduciary oversight and governance of plan menus, particularly for default investment options. Full article

The long-run sustainability of pay-as-you-go pension systems crucially depends on the dynamic balance between social-security contributions paid by the working population and benefits paid to retirees. In Italy, the National Social Security Institute (INPS) manages the core of the public system, whose financial equilibrium is increasingly challenged by demographic aging, labor market fragility, and macroeconomic shocks. In this paper, in line with the aims of the Special Issue “Signal Processing and Machine Learning in Real-Life Processes”, we reinterpret the Italian pension system as a complex stochastic signal-processing problem. Using the most recent data published in the Annuario Statistico Italiano 2024 highlighting by ISTAT—with a focus on Protection and Social Security—we construct a set of time series describing contributions, benefits, coverage ratios and pension amounts, both at the national and territorial level. On this basis, we compare classical time-series models and a recurrent neural network with Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) architecture for multi-step forecasting of the main aggregates. The signal-processing perspective allows us to disentangle trend, cyclical and shock components, while machine learning provides flexible nonlinear forecasting tools capable of capturing structural breaks such as the COVID-19 crisis. Our empirical results suggest that (i) pension expenditure remains high and persistent as a share of GDP; (ii) the contribution coverage ratio improved in 2022 but remains below the pre-pandemic level; and (iii) regional heterogeneity in the per-capita pension deficit is substantial and stable over time, with persistent imbalances in Southern regions and Islands. Finally, we perform a scenario analysis combining LSTM-based forecasts with demographic and labor market hypotheses, and we quantify the impact of alternative policy measures on the future pension deficit signal. The proposed framework, which integrates permutation-based inference, signal decomposition and deep learning, provides a reproducible template for the real-time monitoring of pension sustainability using official open data. Full article

Lebanon does not have a national mortality table that reflects its demographic and health conditions. Despite ongoing changes in mortality patterns driven by economic crises, political instability, and social changes, outdated foreign tables such as AM80 remain in use in the insurance and public sectors. This dependency introduces significant risks in actuarial calculations, policy design, and long-term planning. This study addresses this gap by building a mortality table specifically adapted to the Lebanese insurance context, together with a first estimation of population-level mortality. In the absence of any official mortality database, we collaborated directly with local insurance companies to access and organize internal records of insured lives. These data, which represent one of the few available structured sources of mortality information in the country, form the core of our analysis. We apply actuarial methods to estimate age-specific death rates and life expectancy and benchmark the results against national and international references to assess consistency and range. By offering a locally grounded, data-driven alternative to imported mortality assumptions, this work fills a critical statistical need. The resulting table supports more accurate forecasting, pricing, and demographic modeling, with applications across insurance, pensions, and public health planning in Lebanon. Full article

As China’s population ages and the sustainability of the public pension system is at risk, personal savings become crucial. As such, the quality of financial planning for retirement (FPR) has been recognized as a key to safeguarding financial well-being during retirement. This study examines the relationships of two predictors (future time perspective and risk tolerance) and a mediator (subjective financial literacy) in shaping financial planning for retirement, with particular attention to potential gender differences. Using survey data retrieved from respondents aged between 23 and 60 years old, overall sample and gender-based multigroup analysis were used to examine whether gender moderates these relationships. The results reveal that both future time perspective and subjective financial literacy positively influence financial planning for retirement across all gender groups. Notably, we found no significant gender gap in retirement planning behavior. Subjective financial literacy serves as a significant mediator linking both future time perspective and risk tolerance to retirement planning, though the indirect effect of risk tolerance through financial literacy differs significantly between genders. Academically, theoretical propositions related to retirement planning can be accounted for by both genders. Practically, standardized policy can be tailored to address retirement issues across genders. The study emphasizes that financial planning for retirement in China shows no gender gap, and this provides meaningful guidance to policymakers and financial institutions to develop measures to encourage individuals to take financial actions in retirement planning. Finally, the combined interpretation of a strong effect of subjective financial literacy and an insignificant effect of risk tolerance raises concern that adult income earners in China are affected by financial literacy bias when practicing financial retirement planning. Full article

Our study analyzes the essential role of social innovation in reducing social exclusion and unemployment while improving citizens’ well-being through targeted public policies that enhance GDP allocations to social protection. Using Eurostat data and European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) from 2019 to 2020, a comparative econometric analysis of all 27 EU member states, focused particularly on Romania, examines the interdependence between social innovation, social protection expenditures, social exclusion, and unemployment rates. Regression and ANOVA models confirm a significant positive relationship between social innovation and social protection spending. However, Romania’s overall share of social protection in GDP remains well below the EU average, despite higher relative spending on health, pensions, and family support, reflecting structural limitations and a slower diffusion of innovative practices. As an exploratory effort, the study acknowledges possible distortions caused by the pandemic, which temporarily increased expenditures and altered long-term trends. Broader macroeconomic factors such as inflation, demographics, and technology were not included but may refine future analyses. The findings provide both theoretical and practical insights, suggesting that enhancing social innovation through public policy can strengthen social cohesion, improve quality of life, and support the sustainable development of national protection systems. Full article