A forward looking age based on longevity expectations

Aktas, A. & Sanderson, W.C. (2015). A forward looking age based on longevity expectations. IIASA Interim Report. IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria: IR-15-016

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Abstract

Many personal decisions are shaped by people's expectations of the future, but these expectations are rarely included in the study of those decisions. Often, studies that analyze these forward-looking decisions use chronological age, an inherently backward-looking measure, as a proxy for those expectations. In this paper, we use a two part methodology to compute a forward-looking age which is based on data of longevity expectations collected in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). In the first part, we propose a method to translate those expectations into life tables. In the second part, those life tables are used to produce forward-looking ages that can be used in the study of forward-looking decisions. We find that education has a great effect on subjective life expectancy, therefore on forward-looking age. Also, we observe that at any given education level, the forward-looking age of the younger cohort is always greater than or equal to the forward-looking age of the older cohort. Finally, the difference between forward-looking age chronological age is increasing as individuals get older, but the speed of this change varies depending on education level, cohort and health-related conditions.

Item Type:	Monograph (IIASA Interim Report)
Research Programs:	World Population (POP) Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP)
Depositing User:	IIASA Import
Date Deposited:	15 Jan 2016 08:54
Last Modified:	27 Aug 2021 17:25
URI:	https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/11673

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