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A new perspective on population aging

Author

Listed:
  • Warren C. Sanderson

    (Stony Brook University)

  • Sergei Scherbov

    (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA))

Abstract

In Sanderson and Scherbov (2005) we introduced a new forward-looking definition of age and argued that its use, along with the traditional backward-looking concept of age, provides a more informative basis upon which to discuss population aging. Age is a measure of how many years a person has already lived. In contrast, our new approach to measuring age is concerned about the future. In this paper, we first explore our new age measure in detail and show, using an analytic formulation, historical data, and forecasts, that it is, in most cases, insensitive to whether it is measured using period or cohort life tables. We, then, show, using new forward-looking definitions of median age and the old age dependency ratio, how combining the traditional age concept and our new one enhances our understanding of population aging.

Suggested Citation

  • Warren C. Sanderson & Sergei Scherbov, 2007. "A new perspective on population aging," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 16(2), pages 27-58.
    • Handle: RePEc:dem:demres:v:16:y:2007:i:2
    DOI: 10.4054/DemRes.2007.16.2
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter Zweifel & Stefan Felder & Andreas Werblow, 2004. "Population Ageing and Health Care Expenditure: New Evidence on the “Red Herring”," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 29(4), pages 652-666, October.
    2. Wolfgang Lutz & Warren Sanderson & Sergei Scherbov, 2001. "The end of world population growth," Nature, Nature, vol. 412(6846), pages 543-545, August.
    3. Tim Miller, 2001. "Increasing longevity and medicare expenditures," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 38(2), pages 215-226, May.
    4. Zhou Yang & Edward C. Norton & Sally C. Stearns, 2003. "Longevity and Health Care Expenditures," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 58(1), pages 2-10.
    5. Shiro Horiuchi, 2005. "Tempo effect on age-specific death rates," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 13(8), pages 189-200.
    6. John Bongaarts & Griffith Feeney, 2002. "How Long Do We Live?," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 28(1), pages 13-29, March.
    7. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, Kent Smetters, and Jan Walliser, 2001. "The Coming Generational Storm," Computing in Economics and Finance 2001 276, Society for Computational Economics.
    8. Sally C. Stearns & Edward C. Norton, 2004. "Time to include time to death? The future of health care expenditure predictions," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(4), pages 315-327, April.
    9. Warren C. Sanderson & Sergei Scherbov, 2005. "Average remaining lifetimes can increase as human populations age," Nature, Nature, vol. 435(7043), pages 811-813, June.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    population forecasting; aging; historical demography; life expectancy; prospective age; median age;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General

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