Science and Ideas Group: Economic Demography - Population Aging and the Economy

Presenter: Martha Jones, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine, Health and Society, Vanderbilt University
Economic demography deals with how socioeconomic factors affect demographic processes at the individual, family and societal level. Demography also affects the economy and society through a changing age structure, migration flows, cycles in union formation and childbearing. This presentation focuses on how population aging affects the economy using two examples from the United States: Social Security and the care economy. Due to the growing numbers of older Americans relative to workers, concerns about whether Social Security will be able to continue providing the current level of benefits are constantly in the news. Headlines tend to emphasize potential negative financial impacts of population aging.
Moreover, the United States is aging but doesn’t have the care workers it needs-nursing home employees, home health aides-to support a growing population of older Americans. Childcare shortages and costs are making it difficult for people to participate in the workforce. Research from the National Transfer Accounts, which is a project seeking to “understand the generational economy,” shows that women specialize in unpaid care work (for their children, spouses and/or parents) and they continue to produce even at the oldest ages, providing many unrecognized contributions to the U.S. economy.
Martha Jones is an economist who has been teaching at Vanderbilt University since 2013. Her current research is in occupational health, specifically work-related injuries and illnesses. Her research interests have spanned various topics over time, including California educational finance (her PhD thesis at UC Berkeley) and reports for the California legislature and executive branch while working as a researcher for the State of California from 1999-2013. She taught economics and statistics in the San Francisco Bay Area and Geneva, Switzerland from 1995-1999. Previous employment included positions at the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia and New York as well as at the United Nations, Economic Commission for Europe in Geneva, Switzerland. She enjoys spending time with her family and travelling as well as playing tennis and her viola.
Live transcription available here: drive.google.com/file/d/1z0HW...
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