Forecasts are always wrong. Still, they paint potential future scenarios and provide a platform for policy decisions today. This is what gives forecast such a high salience in political debates about the effects of population aging. The paper aims at gauging the effect of population aging on...

The consequences of population ageing for the health care system and health care costs may be less severe than is commonly assumed. Hospital discharge data from Germany’s largest health insurer (AOK) show that the care of patients during their last year of life is less costly if they die at an...

Most studies dealing with the impact of marriage on mortality treat being married as a once-and-for-all status. However, multiple life changes in marital status characterize the modern life course. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the timing of these changes affect mortality in...

Recent trends in German life expectancy show a considerable increase. Most of this increase has resulted from decreasing mortality at older ages. Patterns of oldest old mortality (ages 80+) differed significantly between men and women as well as between East and West Germany. While West German...

Parental preferences for the sex of children are a prominent subject of study in some Asian and African countries where sex-selective behavior has led to skewed sex-ratios. In Europe or North-America, by contrast, cross-sectional data does not reveal any clear pattern of sex-preferences....