Can We Afford to Grow Older?

In 1996, the United States Social Security fund is huge and in trouble. The United Kingdom has experimented with the voluntary contracting out of pensions to the private sector. Chile has privatized its public pension system. Australia has adopted a means-tested public pension system. Japan has the earliest retirement age of any advanced economy; it also has the highest rate of labour force participation by elderly men. Can We Afford To Grow Older? provides a comprehensive, up-to-date survey of the implications of population ageing in these and other OECD countries relative to a range of specific interrelated issues - Social Security schemes, employer pensions, educational attainment, wage growth and distribution, economic productivity, consumption, savings, retirement, and health care - all within a framework for modelling and discussing policy.