Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2010 - Volume 33, Issue 01  

Cambridge Journals Online - CUP Full-Text Page
Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2010), 33:31-32 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010
doi:10.1017/S0140525X09991695

Open Peer Commentary

Population aging and the economic role of the elderly: Bonanza or burden?

Ronald D. Leea1

a1 Department of Demography, University of California–Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720. rlee@demog.berkeley.edu http://www.ceda.berkeley.edu/peoplenew/rlee.html
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Abstract

As societies industrialize, the age profile of consumption tilts strongly toward the elderly, while elder labor supply drops. Low fertility and long life lead to population aging. For millennia, material resources have, on net, flowed downward from older to younger within populations, but now in many rich societies net flows have reversed and go upwards from young to old.

Grandparental investment: Past, present, and future David A. Coall and Ralph Hertwig School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, Fremantle, Western Australia 6160, Australia. david.coall@uwa.edu.au http://www.uwa.edu.au/people/david.coall; Department of Psychology, University of Basel, 4055 Basel, Switzerland. ralph.hertwig@unibas.ch http://www.psycho.unibas.ch/hertwig