Education, aging, and health: to what extent can the rise in educational level relieve the future health (care) burden associated with population aging in the Netherlands?

This article describes to what extent the expected rise in the educational level of the Dutch population can counterbalance the increases in the prevalence of ill-health and health care utilization based on the aging of the population for the period 1996-2020. Logistic regression models are used to estimate current differences in health (care utilization) by age, sex, and educational level, using data from the Netherlands Health Interview Survey. The current differences in health (care utilization) are applied to national projections of the composition of the population by age, sex, and educational level. Also, scenarios have been made in which the health differences by educational level are assumed to converge and diverge. The rise in the educational level counteracts the expected increases in ill-health based on population aging to a substantial degree (10-100%). We therefore recommend that in projections of ill-health also changes in educational level are taken into account.

Microsimulation methods for population projection.

PIP: The use of microsimulation methods for making population projections is examined. "A particular problem in microsimulation results from the fact that the projections are subject to random variation. Various sources of random variations are examined but the most important is the one we refer to as specification randomness: the more explanatory variables are included in the model, the greater the degree of random variation affecting the output of the model. After a brief survey of the microsimulation models which exist in demography, a number of the essential characteristics of microsimulation are illustrated using the KINSIM model for projecting the future size and structure of kinship networks." (EXCERPT)^ieng

The budgetary dilemmas of an ageing workforce: a scenario study of the public sector in the Netherlands.

PIP: This study examined the budgetary consequences of alternative policies on aging in the public sector in the Netherlands. Budgetary consequences include salaried employee costs, the benefit costs of the inactive population aged under 65 years, and the implicit costs of not replacing retired workers. Data were obtained from the largest pension fund (ABP). Public sector includes all sectors covered by the ABP and includes all civil servants, educational workers, and noncommercial services, excluding health care. The authors construct a flow-model of public sector workers in 1993, with varying age specific rates of change in inflow, outflow, and position. Scenarios answer questions about the impact of aging on labor productivity and demand for new workers, and the effects of redistributing labor, changing early retirement schemes (ERS), and retiring part-time. It is assumed that labor productivity per hour is the same regardless of age. Salary increases with age, but scenarios assume a constant age-salary profile. Participation in senior worker schemes and/or use of inactivity schemes by restricting eligibility criteria will not generate substantial savings in public spending. ERS cutbacks will pass expenses on to other agencies and not reduce total public spending. Increased part-time retirement produces limited budgetary benefits. Costs increase with age and are reflected in ERS and unemployment schemes. Alternatives will reflect disability costs, salary costs of active workers, or unemployment benefits to young people who cannot find jobs because older workers are retiring too slowly. Aging societies are expensive.^ieng

The selection of internal migration models for European regions.

"A full multiregional projection model requires migration data that are simultaneously classified by age and gender and region of origin and region of destination. Except for a very small number of regions, these data requirements are so high that aggregation of the data (which is equivalent to simplification of the model) is called for. This paper investigates the extent to which the full internal migration matrix can be simplified without seriously affecting the performance of the resulting multiregional model. Using IPF (iterative proportional fitting) methods, a log-linear analysis of alternative model specifications is made, using data for Italy, the Netherlands and the UK....A reasonable balance between goodness-of-fit and parsimony is found for the model in which time interacts with the main effects only (i.e. with age/sex, with origin and with destination)."

A consistency algorithm based on information theory.

"This paper provides a geometric-mean solution to the consistency problem of multidimensional demographic projection models, based on the constrained minimization of an entropy function. A comparison with the existing harmonic-mean solution yields many similarities and almost no differences....However, one major advantage of the geometric mean is that its corresponding distance function is firmly based on (information) theory." (SUMMARY IN FRE)

Demographic change, international migration, and public education.

"This paper studies the impact of demographic change and international migration on economic development and the education sector. We employ a simple simulation model for tracing the impact of international migration on the educational and economic system, under alternative assumptions on the education background and adaptation costs of migrants. An application to the case of the Netherlands shows that international migration of whatever (realistic) level will not be able to prevent strong population aging during the period 2010-2035. Given the current below-average educational and productive profile of the immigrant population in the Netherlands, increased migration will only make matters worse."

The exponential multidimensional demographic projection model.

"This paper presents the multidimensional demographic projection on the basis of an exponential specification, which avoids the problems associated with the widely used specification on the basis of the linear integration hypothesis. It generalizes earlier work by Gill (1986) on Markov models for closed populations to include the case of open populations. A numerical illustration is also provided." (SUMMARY IN FRE)

Age structure, education, and the transmission of technical change.

PIP: The significance of deviations from exponential population growth to economic development requires the construction of growth models that explicitly recognize demographic forces as a potential source of nonstationarities. This paper uses an overlapping generations approach to analyze the impact of population aging on technological innovations in the production process. Specifically, it is assumed that a newly invented technology can be used only if the production unit engages human labor that has been trained for this task (labor-embodied technical change). In a model of overlapping generations 1-sector optimal growth, there are 3 basic components: population, education and labor, and production and investment. An individual who has been in school continuously from the time of birth embodies, according to this model, the most up-to-date form of human capital. When the population growth rate is high, technological innovations are achieved largely through the constant influx of recently educated young people into the labor force. However, when population declines lead to a slowing down of this influx, increased adult education is necessary to stimulate the continued introduction of innovations into the productive process. The form of the optimality conditions, the comparative statistics properties, and the form of the nonstationary optimal economic growth path in this model are similar to those in the Van Imhoff model of homogeneous human capital.^ieng