Ageing and Retirement Security: United States of America and Mexico

Abstract

Much of the existing literature on retirement security focuses on specific sources of old-age financing, mainly pensions and health care. This paper examines and compares all major sources of financial security for older people in Mexico, older Mexican Americans, and non-Mexican Americans living in the United States, using the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) approach and data, which include labour income, public transfers, private transfers (intra and inter-household) and asset reallocations. Results show that older persons in Mexico and the United States share some similarities in financing old age, including substantial reliance on public transfers and asset income. Also, older persons in both countries work into old age. Mexican Americans, differ from the two aforementioned populations in that they finance a much larger proportion of their old-age consumption through public transfers, and they are net receivers of familial transfers.