Search

This chapter addresses financial education across the lifespan, which has the potential to enhance adult financial capability, yet methodological barriers and a lack of robust measures have hampered the ability to identify and measure the effects of educational programs on financial decisions and behavior.

Summary: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a common disorder. OSA is associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD), type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and depression, among other comorbidities. We aim to determine the productivity burden of OSA in Australia using productivity‐adjusted life‐years (PALYs). Using life table modelling, we built a multistate Markov model to estimate the impact of moderate to severe OSA on the whole working‐age Australian population in 2021 (aged 20–65 years) with OSA until retirement (aged 66 years). The model also captured the impact of OSA on CVD, T2DM, depression, and vehicle‐related accidents. Data for OSA and comorbidities and Australian specific labour data, were extracted from published sources. A second cohort was then modelled to test the effect of a hypothetical intervention, assuming a 10% reduction in OSA prevalence and a 10% reduction in comorbidities in patients with OSA. The primary outcome of interest were PALYs accrued. All outcomes were discounted 5% annually. Over a lifetime, the Australian population with OSA accrued 193,713,441 years of life lived and 182,737,644 PALYs. A reduction of 10% in OSA prevalence and comorbidities would result in 45,401 extra years of life lived and 150,950 extra PALYs. This resulted in more than AU$25 billion of gained gross domestic product over the lifetime of the working population. Our study highlights the substantial burden of OSA on the Australian population and the need to tailor interventions at the population level to reduce the health and economic impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine across birth cohorts the consequences for inter- and intra-gender equality of changing patterns of women's work, earnings, and marriage. While over time work participation rates, average earnings, and pension coverage for women have become increasingly similar to those for men, inequality among women has grown. As the economic opportunities for college-educated women have improved, women with only a high school education or less are increasingly disadvantaged in the labor and marriage markets. The effects of employment changes on the future retirement security of women can either be told simply--on average the gender gap in labor force participation, wages, and pension coverage is closing--or be told with attention to the growing inequality among women in employment, pension coverage and benefits. In the presence of greater gender equality, inequality among women is becoming the future retirement security challenge for women and policy makers. KEYWORDS older women, labor force participation, earnings, marriage DOI: 10.1080/15544770902901817

A current policy issue is the extent to which savings are sufficient to sustain economic well-being in retirement. We compare annuitized wealth at retirement to three preretirement consumption estimates. About one-half of new retirees have insufficient resources to enable the full maintenance of estimated preretirement consumption in retirement, and about 40% fail to meet the '0.7 of earnings' standard that is used in many studies. Using standards reflecting social (poverty) norms we find a less serious problem. About 5% (25%) of new retirees have insufficient resources to enable an above-poverty (near-poverty) level of living during retirement. (JEL J14, J26), I. INTRODUCTION A persistent policy concern regarding the elderly is the extent to which available resources at the time of retirement are sufficient to enable the maintenance of economic well-being [...]

An attempt is made to evaluate the efficacy of pharmacological agents used in the treatment of neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia. The conclusion states that pharmacological therapies are not effective for management of neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia as compared to the antipsychotics risperidone and olanzapine.

Objectives. This study examines the wealth holdings of recent widows, how they compare to those of married couple households, and the potential to use this wealth to augment the incomes of widowed women. Methods. Data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation are used to investigate the amount and composition of wealth held by four different groups: always married women, about-to-be-widowed women, recent widows, and long-standing widows. Regression analyses assess the impact of group membership on wealth holding controlling for other sociodemographic factors, and annuity calculations assess the potential for wealth to augment income. Results. About-to-be widowed women have fewer assets than intact couples, and there is a further decline in assets at the time of the husbands' deaths and in the ensuing period. Estimates of the annuity value of widows' wealth show that its liquidation would do little to improve the economic situation of the poorest widows. Discussion. These findings parallel what is known about income changes that surround the death of a spouse. They also point to the need for additional research on the relationship between wealth holdings and mortality as well as the roles that health care costs, life insurance, and bequests may play in altering widows' wealth.

Economic models of life cycle behavior suggest that expectations about future events may affect savings, insurance, and retirement planning. This article uses data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine how personal characteristics and health conditions influence expectations of nursing home use. Subjective expectations of nursing home use are quite close to known probabilities of lifetime use. There are marked differences in the determinants of expectations for women and men that also conform to actual behavior. There is strong evidence that women and men incorporate what is known about nursing home risk into their own expectations, even many years prior to the time when they are most likely to need long-term care.

We use data from the first wave of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine the marital histories of this cohort of women and men on the verge of retirement. The legacy of past increases in divorce rates is evident in the complex marital histories of HRS households and the relationship between those histories and current economic status. Couples in a first marriage now make up only one-quarter of black households and fewer than half of all white and Hispanic households. In over one-third of all married-couple households, at least one spouse had a previous marriage that ended in divorce or widowhood. These couples have significantly lower incomes and assets than couples in first marriages. Contrary to the popular notion that private and public insurance better provide for the security of widows than divorced persons, currently widowed households and couples in which the prior marriage of one spouse had ended in widowhood are no better off than are their divorced peers. This holds true for both black and white households. From a single cross-section, one cannot tell what caused these differences in income and wealth across marital status groups although it is clear that women and blacks spend a higher percentage of their lifetime outside of marriage than do men and whites. We also speculate from estimates of widowhood expectations for a subset of married respondents that underestimating the chances of widowhood - because both men and women overestimate their chances of joint survival - may be a factor in the relatively low economic status of widows. Because couples in life-long marriages have been the traditional standard upon which marital property reform and the survivorship rules of private and public programs are based, their diminishing importance among all households raises concern about the protection provided by these institutions against the long-term economic consequences of past and future marital dissolution. Key Words: Marital status, Widowhood, Economic well-being

Data acquired from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) about the elderly runs into a number of problems specific to that group. The most glaring lack is eligibility for social security benefits data. The elderly derive a higher percentage of their income from assets and these have been shown to be underreported. Thus, well-being of the elderly will be underestimated relative to younger families with fewer assets. Furthermore, SIPP does not track those who are institutionalized, losing some of the most important income changes for the elderly.

Cross-sectional data show that among the aged, widows and widowers are significantly worse off than married couples. Here the diverse paths widows and widowers take to such outcomes are explored. The families of married men who retired during the ten-year Retirement History Study are traced, and it is found that the incidence of a fall into poverty and of a significant drop in the income-to-needs ratio dramatically increases for widows, but not for widowers, upon the death of a spouse. Widowers are actually less likely to experience a bad economic outcome following the death of the spouse than prior to it.

Strange jellyfish floating in an unknown sea Lift a breeze makes, lemon thyme, clear morning Sun low on the garden wall, how a mouth looks Forming a forbidden word, or [...]

Examines the risk of poverty among a sample of elderly couples and widows interviewed over a 10-year period. When individual movements into and out of poverty over time are identified, the risk of becoming poor is more than double the highest annual risk among couples, and is raised by almost 30 percent for widows. (Author/ABB)