Gerontology and Society call for papers "Elder Abuse: Definitions, Public Action, and Actors' Experiences" until June 1, 2021

Call for articles from the journal Gérontologie et Société "Des espaces à vivre à l'aune du vieillissement" until October 1, 2021

OECD Forum Series "Addressing the hidden pandemic, the impact of Covid-19 on mental health" on 15 April, 2021

OECD Forum Series "Building a gender-equal recovery" on 28 April, 2021

MESHS conference in partnership with the University Hospital of Lille on May 20 on "Medicine facing the treatment of old people in institutions in the 19th century: the history of an avoidance?"

Find the call for papers of the 18th International Conference on Pensions, Insurance and Savings of the University Paris Dauphine

International Conference on Development Economics of DIAL, GREThA and LAREFI on June 30, July 1 and 2. 

Conference "Gender inequalities: the role of companies" organized by PSE and IPP on May 27th in videoconference

Conference of Radio France, Bayard Group and the TDTE Chair on "The intergenerational question" on May 6, 2021 from 9am to 7pm. 

A study by Ahammer, Grübl, and Winter-Ebmer analyzes the effect of health externalities associated with downsizing in firms. The coronavirus crisis and the policies put in place to combat the transmission of the virus have led to a wave of unemployment in Europe and the United States. This study uses data from Austria to examine the impact of company downsizing on the health of those who remain in the company. The authors find a significant increase in medication prescriptions and hospitalizations following mass layoffs, primarily due to mental and cardiovascular disorders. The authors state that stress due to fear of job loss, rather than increased workload, is the most likely explanation.

In a recent study, Deng, Fang, Hanewald, and Wu develop a life-cycle model involving labor supply and consumption to quantify the implications of pension reforms on labor supply, individual welfare, and the government budget for the basic old-age insurance program in China. They also distinguish between low-skilled and high-skilled individuals, who differ in their preferences, health and labor income dynamics, and medical spending processes. They then evaluate three potential pension reforms: 

1- Increasing the retirement eligibility age from 60 to 65, but maintaining the current retirement benefit rule. 

2- Maintaining the retirement eligibility age at 60, but proportionally reducing pension benefits so that the pension program budget is the same as under Reform 1. 

3- Increasing the retirement eligibility age to 65 and simultaneously increasing retirement benefits so that individuals in both skill types achieve the same levels of individual well-being as under the status quo. 

They conclude that reforms 1 and 2 can significantly improve retirement system budgets, but at the cost of a loss in individual welfare. In contrast, they find that reform 3 can modestly improve the retirement system budget while ensuring that both types of agents benefit from the status quo. Moreover, they find that reforms 1 and 2 slightly increase aggregate labor supply while reform 3 has a slight opposite effect. 

Publication of the annual report of the Conseil d'orientation des retraites (COR), drawing up a report on the evolution of the French pension system and presenting projections to 2070 based on economic, demographic and regulatory assumptions.

In the May 2021 report "Aging well: maturing our ambitions", the Montaigne Institute analyzes the demographic evolution and the French ageing process. They show that it must encourage public decision-makers to rethink the place and role of seniors in our society and build a more inclusive society, adapted to these changes. They draw up a list of proposals aimed at changing the role of seniors and their place in society: organization of care, prevention of loss of autonomy, participation in economic life, promotion of the role of seniors, etc.

In a recent study, De Nardi, French, Bailey Jones, and McGee show that the savings of retired singles tend to decline with age while those of retired couples tend to increase. They estimate a model with retired singles and couples with bequest motives and uncertainty about longevity and medical expenses. Their estimates imply that while medical expenses are an important driver of savings for middle-income singles, bequest motives are important for high-income couples and singles, and generate transfers to heirs. Thus, they demonstrate that the interaction between medical expenses and bequest motives is a key determinant of savings for all retirees and that it is important to model household structure, medical expenses, and bequest motives.

Publication of the 2021 edition of "Les retraités et les retraites" ("Retirees and pensions") by the DREES, presenting a detailed picture of retirees and the French pension system for the year 2019 and previous years.

Publication of the OECD report "Long term care and healthcare insurance" which examines the complementarity of public health services with the private sector in long-term care and how the insurance market can support the public long-term care system. 

Jacquet-Smailovic, Tarquinio, and Houppe present a synthesis of studies on the links between psychological trauma and myocardial infarction. They list numerous studies that have demonstrated a link between posttraumatic stress disorder and myocardial infarction. Thus, the occurrence of this cardiac event can be traumatic for some people, and be at the origin of the development of a post-traumatic stress disorder. Conversely, suffering from it appears to be a major risk factor for acute coronary disease. They also express the fact that potentially traumatic life events experienced in childhood are also associated with a significant increase in the risk of heart disease in adulthood. 

Adams-Prassl, Boneva, Golin, and Rauh show that women, the youngest and least educated bore the brunt of the economic damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and confinement in terms of lost jobs and income. Women also suffered much more from social distancing measures than men in terms of mental health. Results from the Spring 2020 ‘stay-at-home’ orders in the US States indicate that this growing gender gap in mental health cannot be explained by respondents earning less than usual, working less than usual, losing their jobs, etc. This suggests that the "lockdown" and social distancing measures that have been put in place have in fact affected women's mental health, beyond the realized health and labor market impacts of the crisis. These findings underscore the importance for policymakers to consider the costs of mental health when designing policies to guide us through the COVID-19 crisis and advocate that appropriate resources should be invested in mental health services and prevention programs. In addition, it's very important to understand which policies can help to close the growing gender gap in mental health.

Ahammer, Bauernschuster, Halla, Lachenmaier show that binge drinking among adolescents is more prevalent in Europe than in the United States, where alcohol is prohibited for those under 21. This article analyzes the relationship between the minimum legal drinking age and alcohol abuse. Using administrative health data and surveys in Austria, it finds a significant increase in alcohol consumption, especially among boys and people from disadvantaged backgrounds when drinking becomes legal. They find that adolescents increase both the frequency and intensity of their drinking at the threshold of the legal drinking age and that these effects tend to be more pronounced among boys and adolescents from low socioeconomic backgrounds. They show that these effects persist for some years and cannot be explained by birthday effects. Thus, raising the minimum legal drinking age in Europe could reduce alcohol intoxication and the early socioeconomic gradient of excessive drinking among adolescents. 

Bloom, Chen, Counts, Han, Malik, Nandi, Seligman, Vigo estimate that Alzheimer and dementia have high societal and economic costs. These diseases are estimated to have contributed to a loss of 33.1 million years of full health (measured in disability-adjusted life years) in 2019, and this could more than triple within 30 years. This burden will increasingly be on low and middle-income countries. Therefore, to ensure the future health and functioning of an ageing global community, they recommend investing in R&D and effective supportive interventions against dementia.