Life expectancy, fertility, and retirement in an endogenous-growth model with human capital accumulation

Abstract

This paper analyzes how the improvement in life expectancy affects fertility, educational investments, retirement, and economic growth based on an overlapping-generations model with human capital accumulation. We show that if the labor productivity of the old is greater (lower) than a critical value, then higher life expectancy will raise (reduce) fertility. Moreover, agents will postpone retirement as life expectancy increases if the labor productivity of the old is near the critical value. However, life expectancy changes do not affect output per capita's growth rate. A decrease in the income tax rate does not affect fertility, but causes agents to postpone retirement while simultaneously raising the growth rate of output per capita. The empirical analysis finds that life expectancy has an overall negative effect on fertility, and this negative effect diminishes as life expectancy (a proxy for labor productivity of the old) rises. Moreover, life expectancy does not significantly influence growth for countries with high life expectancy or middle or high income.