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The Inequality of Lifetime Pensions

By on October 17, 2023 in Articles

Jiaxin Shi, Martin Kolk

Sociological Science October 17, 2023
10.15195/v10.a24

Abstract

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At older ages, most people are supported by pension systems that provide payments based on prior contributions. An important, but neglected, aspect of inequality in how much people receive in pensions is the number of years they live to receive their pension. We examine inequality in lifetime-accumulated pensions and show the importance of mortality for understanding inequalities in pension payments, and contrast it to inequalities in working-age earnings and yearly pension payments among older adults. In contrast to most previous research on old-age inequality comparing different social groups, we focused on total-population-level inequality. Using Swedish register data covering the retired population born from 1918–1939, we found that lifetime pensions are much more unequal than pre-retirement earnings and yearly pensions. Our findings also show that mortality explains more than 50 percent of the inequality of lifetime pensions within cohorts, and plays an important role in explaining changes in inequality across cohorts (192 percent among men and 44 percent among women). Pension policies can affect lifetime pension inequality, but such effects are limited in magnitude unless they directly affect the number of years of receiving pensions.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Jiaxin Shi: Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany. Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science & Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. Demographic Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden
E-mail: shi@demogr.mpg.de

Martin Kolk: Demography Unit, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden. Institute for Future Studies, Stockholm, Sweden. Åbo Akademi University, Vaasa, Finland
E-mail: martin.kolk@sociology.su.se

Acknowledgements: We thank Jenn Dowd, Christian Dudel, John Ermisch, Martin Hällsten, Robert Hummer, Guanghui Pan, Fabian Pfeffer, Yifan Shen, Joshua Wilde, Alyson van Raalte, and participants at the Oxford Sociology Monday Meeting for their helpful feedback on previous drafts. Jiaxin Shi was supported by the European Research Council (grant no. 716323) and a Leverhulme Trust Grant (Grant RC-2018-003) for the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford. Jiaxin Shi gratefully acknowledges the resources provided by the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science (IMPRS-PHDS). Martin Kolk was supported by the Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2019-02552 and 2022-02314) and the Swedish Research Council for Health,Working Life andWelfare (FORTE, grant no. 2016-07115).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Shi, Jiaxin, and Martin Kolk. 2023. “The Inequality of Lifetime Pensions” Sociological Science 7: 667-693.
  • Received: May 24, 2023
  • Accepted: July 31, 2023
  • Editors: Arnout van de Rijt, Stephen Vaisey
  • DOI: 10.15195/v10.a24


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Signs of the End of the Paradox? Cohort Shifts in Smoking and Obesity and the Hispanic Life Expectancy Advantage

By on August 31, 2020 in Articles

Jennifer Van Hook, Michelle L. Frisco, Carlyn E. Graham

Sociological Science August 31, 2020
10.15195/v7.a16

Abstract
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Hispanics’ paradoxical life expectancy advantage over whites has largely been attributed to Hispanics’ lower smoking prevalence. Yet across birth cohorts, smoking prevalence has declined for whites and Hispanics, and Hispanics’ obesity prevalence has increased substantially. Our analysis uses data from the 1989 to 2014 National Health Interview Survey and Linked Mortality files to investigate whether these trends could lead Hispanics to lose their comparative mortality advantage. Simulations suggest that foreign-born Hispanics’ life expectancy advantage over whites is likely to persist because cohort trends in smoking and obesity largely offset each other. However, U.S.-born Hispanics’ life expectancy advantage over whites is likely to diminish or disappear entirely as the 1970s and 1980s birth cohorts age due to increases in obesity prevalence and the relatively high mortality risks of those who are obese. Results have important implications for understanding the future of immigrants’ health advantages and ethnic disparities in health.
Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Jennifer Van Hook: Department of Sociology, Penn State University
E-mail: jxv21@psu.edu

Michelle L. Frisco: Department of Sociology, Penn State University
E-mail: mlf112@psu.edu

Carlyn E. Graham: Department of Sociology, Penn State University
E-mail: ceg248@psu.edu

Acknowledgments: We are grateful to Virginia Chang for helpful comments in her role as a discussant of this article at the 2019 meeting of the Population Association of America. We also acknowledge assistance provided by the Population Research Institute at Penn State University, which is supported by an infrastructure grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD041025).

Supplemental Material

  • Citation: Van Hook, Jennifer, Michelle L. Frisco, and Carlyn E. Graham. 2020. “Signs of the End of the Paradox? Cohort Shifts in Smoking and Obesity and the Hispanic Life Expectancy Advantage.” Sociological Science 7: 391-414.
  • Received: June 13, 2020
  • Accepted: July 20, 2020
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v7.a16


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