The life-cycle hypothesis implies that consumption would not decline at retirement. However, several studies found relevant declines in food consumption after retirement for the United States. Others concluded that this contradiction of the life-cycle hypothesis is solved by allowing for broader...

This paper shows that the measurement of hand grip strength provides a non-invasive and reliable objective health indicator for social science research and is easy to collect in general population surveys. Grip strength is not only a useful complement of self-reported indicators of health, but...

In several OECD countries, public pay-as-you-go financed pension systems have undergone major reforms in which future retirement benefit promises have been scaled down. A consequence of these reforms is that especially in countries with a tight tax-benefit linkage, the retirement benefit claims...

Von der demographischen Entwicklung wird allgemein eine Zunahme der Zahl Pflegebedürftiger erwartet. Um die mögliche Dynamik in diesem Bereich aufzuzeigen, wird mit Hilfe des DIW-Bevölkerungsmodells, das u.a. die weiterhin steigende Lebenserwartung modelliert, die Zahl der Pflegefälle...

Eine unerwartet steigende Lebenserwartung führt bei privaten kapitalgedeckten Rentenversicherungsverträgen zu sinkenden Rentenzahlungen und/oder einer Belastung des Versicherungsunternehmens, das verschiedene Möglichkeiten hat, dieser Belastung zu entgegnen. Für Deutschland wird anhand der...

Results from travel demand research in many countries show that - on average - women are less mobile and have different mobility patterns than men. Recent longitudinal studies of gender specific travel demand reveal converging mobility of males and females. Moreover, in some countries results...

This paper investigates the relationship between wealth, ageing and saving behaviour of private households by using pooled cross sections of German consumption survey data. Different components of wealth are distinguished, as their impact on the savings rate is not homogeneous. On average, the...

It is still an open question whether increasing life expectancy as such is causing higher health care expenditures (HCE) in a population. According to the "red herring" hypothesis, the positive correlation between age and HCE is exclusively due to the fact that mortality rises with age and a...

The recession the United States economy entered in December of 2007 is considered to be the most severe downturn the country has experienced since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate reached as high as 10.1 percent in October 2009 - the highest we have seen since the 1982 recession. In...

This paper explores determinants of church attendance and the formation of 'religious human capital' in Germany within a Becker-style allocation-of-time framework. The analysis is based on data derived from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP). Taking advantage of the longitudinal structure...