Abstract The main focus of the chapter is on “inter-age transfer,” or the resources reallocated among different age groups at a given moment in time. The welfare state is, in fact, primarily an inter-age, rather than an inter-class, redistribution vehicle. The chapter introduces a new approach to the measurement of such inter-age transfers that includes, besides welfare state public transfers and market-based private transfers, the transfer of unpaid household labor within the family ( time). The chapter uses a recently developed methodology, National Transfer Accounts (henceforth NTA) and National Time Transfer Accounts (henceforth NTTA), that includes familial transfers of money and of time into the calculation of the amount of inter-age transfers in a society. It shows that, once all three transfer types are taken into account, Europe proves to be a continent of elderly-oriented welfare states embedded within societies composed of strongly child-oriented families. By comparing the inter-age transfer systems of Sweden and Taiwan, the authors show that their overall transfer burdens are surprisingly similar.

What are the intergenerational resource transfer contributions of parents and non-parents in Europe? Using National Transfer Accounts and National Time Transfer Accounts for 12 countries around 2010, we go beyond public transfers (net taxes) to also value two statistically much less visible transfers in the family realm: of market goods and of unpaid household labour (time). Non-parents contribute almost exclusively to public transfers. But parents additionally provide still larger private transfers: mothers mainly time, fathers mainly market goods. Estimating transfer stocks over the working life, the average parental/non-parental contribution ratio in Europe flips from 0.73 (public transfers alone) to 2.66 (all three transfers combined). The highest combined parental/non-parental contribution ratios are in Sweden and Finland. The metaphorical tax rates implicitly imposed thereby on rearing children in Europe are multiples of the value-added tax rates in place on consumption goods. Unveiling the sheer magnitude of these invisible transfer asymmetries carries multiple implications for policy debates. For instance, it raises the question whether ageing European societies unwittingly tax, rather than subsidise, their own reproduction. Family friendly policy models, such as the Nordic welfare states, do not mitigate this effect. They help parents work, but do not lower the implicit tax parents pay.

Social scientists identify two core functions of modern welfare states as redistribution across (a) socio-economic status groups (Robin Hood) and (b) ‘the lifecycle’ (the piggy bank). But what is the relative importance of these functions? The answer has been elusive, as the piggy bank is metaphorical. The intra-personal time-travel of resources it implies is based on non-quid-pro-quotransfers. In practice, ‘lifecycle redistribution’ must operate through inter-age-group resource reallocation in cross-section. Since at any time different birth cohorts live together, ‘resource-productive’ working-aged people are taxed to finance consumption of ‘resource-dependent’ younger and older people. In a novel decomposition analysis, we study thejointdistribution of socio-economic status, age, and respectively (a) all cash and in-kind transfers (‘benefits’), (b) financing contributions (‘taxes’), and (c) resulting ‘net benefits,’ on a sample of over 400,000 Europeans from 22 EU countries. European welfare states, often maligned as ineffective Robin Hood vehicles riddled with Matthew effects, are better characterized as inter-age redistribution machines performing a more important second task rather well: lifecycle consumption smoothing. Social policies serve multiple goals in Europe, but empirically they are neither primarily nor solely responsible for poverty relief and inequality reduction.

In line with the previous research, we confirm that welfare programmes in Hungary are poorly targeted in terms of socio-economic status (SES). However, by adding age to our models, we demonstrate that even if the status is irrelevant in explaining access to social benefits and services, age is not. Applying simple regression techniques, we compare both the theoretical importance (based on regression coefficients) and the dispersion importance (using Shapley-value decomposition of theR(2)) of age and SES in explaining the receipt of and contributions to both in-kind and in-cash benefits at the level of the general government in Hungary. We conclude that what appears to be a dysfunctional instrument in alleviating poverty and inequality in a univariate model is actually a channel of resource reallocation that connects working-age people to children and to the elderly when the model includes two predictors.

What are the net inter-age resource transfer burdens over the life course of working-age parents as compared to working-age non-parents in Europe? We estimate all cash, in-kind, and time transfers of the market economy and the household economy, through both public and familial channels, for fourteen European countries in the early 2000s. We advance National Transfer Accounts methodology by splitting up macro-aggregates into three groups: parents, non-parents living in childless households and non-parents cohabiting with children. We find that non-parents contribute almost exclusively to public transfers in net terms, somewhat more than parents do. But parents provide, in addition, a still larger amount of familial transfers. As a result, parents contribute on average 1.8 times as many net transfers as non-parents do, overall. Especially in view of the public good nature of children and contemporary rates of childlessness in Europe, this asymmetric transfer burden carries multiple implications for debates on public policy and a just society.

We evaluate the sustainability of the public transfer systems in 24 EU countries using a new cohort-specific indicator, the Human Capital Investment Gap (HKIG). The indicator measures for a certain cohort the difference between the public benefits in old age and the public contributions of the child generation. Calculating the HKIG for the cohort born in 1950, we show that in none of the analyzed countries the contributions of the child generation will be sufficient to finance the old age benefits of the 1950 cohort, given the age- and employment-specific transfer pattern observed in 2010. This result holds for most of the countries even when assuming very optimistic employment scenarios. The decomposition of the HKIG into its components indicates that the cross-country differences in the HKIG are mainly driven by the level of public contributions and benefits, while retirement age and employment rates play a comparably minor role.

A társadalom idősödése a köztudatban fenyegető veszélyként él, mert megváltoztatja az eltartottak és eltartók arányát, ellehetetleníti a nyugdíjrendszert és az egészségügyet. Tanulmányunkban amellett érvelünk, hogy e veszély semlegesíthető. A korszerkezet változása ugyanis egy sor korszerkezet-érzékeny folyamatot indít be, melyek lezajlása a társadalom reakcióitól függően ellensúlyozhatja, vagy épp felerősítheti a közvetlen létszámhatásokat. Az idősödés két népesedési folyamat eredménye: a javuló halandóságé és a csökkenő termékenységé. A halandóság javulása nem feltétlenül növeli az eltartottak számát, együtt jár ugyanis az aktív kor és az időskor határának kitolódásával. Az elmúlt huszonöt évben úgy emelkedett a munkaerőpiac elhagyásának átlagos életkora négy és fél évnyit, hogy a mindenkori kilépési életkorban mért hátralévő élettartam gyakorlatilag nem változott. Ez a folyamat összefüggésbe hozható a nyugdíjkorhatár közelébe érő korcsoportok javuló iskolázottságával, és figyelembe véve az elmúlt negyedszázad felsőoktatási expanzióját, tovább folytatható. Ami a csökkenő termékenységet illeti, az alacsonyabb gyermekszám rontja ugyan a jövőbeni aktív kori létszámokat, de egyben lehetőséget teremt a ma aktív korúak fokozottabb munkavállalására és megtakarításaik növelésére. Amennyiben a kisebb termékenységű korcsoportok a lehetőséget kihasználva többet dolgoznak és többet takarítanak meg, a korszerkezet változása nem feltétlenül fogja vissza a növekedést és nem feltétlenül rontja az életszínvonalat. A 2010-es kiinduló állapot azonban nem sok jóval kecsegtet. Amennyiben nem nőnek a megtakarítások, a korszerkezet változásának hozzájárulása az életszínvonal növekedéséhez a 2020-as évek közepétől jelentős mértékben negatív lesz.

This paper shows how the effective retirement age rose in eight countries of Central and Eastern Europe (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Slovenia) between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s. It finds that the increase was fast enough to keep life expectancies at the effective retirement age practically unchanged. Every day an average worker of the region got closer to the effective retirement age by only 18.4 hours, instead of 24, because the effective retirement age was moving. In effect, the labor market absorbed all improvements in life expectancies in older working ages. The paper also shows how the educational composition in older working age, specifically in the 55–64-year-old age bracket, improved over the same period, establishing the growth of the effective retirement age. This relatively recent shift is traced back to human capital investments made decades before, specifically the spread of secondary education starting in the 1960s. Finally, the paper shows that maintaining the current life expectancies at retirement over the next 30 years requires less effort in terms of further raising the effective retirement age than what the region achieved in this respect in the last 15 years. Since the countries discussed improved their education systems in recent decades by expanding tertiary enrollment among currently young cohorts, an additional increase in the effective retirement age in the future can be expected, possibly even fending off most of the potentially negative effects of declining mortality.

This paper shows that as the educational composition in the fifty-five to sixty-four year-old age bracket improved between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s, the effective retirement age rose rapidly in the Central and Eastern European region. This increase was fast enough to keep life expectancies at the effective retirement age practically unchanged. In effect, the labor market absorbed all improvements in life expectancies in older working ages. The paper also shows that maintaining the current life expectancies at retirement over the next thirty years requires less effort in terms of further raising the effective retirement age than what the region achieved in this respect in the last fifteen years.

Families and policies both are main vehicles of intergenerational transfers. Working-age people are net contributors; children and older persons net beneficiaries. However, there is an asymmetry in socialization. Working-age people pay taxes and social security contributions to institutionalize care for older persons as a generation, but invest private resources to raise their own children, often with large social returns. This results in asymmetric statistical visibility. Elderly transfers are near-fully observed in National Accounts; those to children much less. Analysing ten European societies, we employ National Transfer Accounts to include public and private transfers, and National Time Transfer Accounts to value unpaid household labour. All three transfer channels combined, children receive more than twice as many per-capita resources as older persons. Europe is a continent of elderly-oriented welfare states and strongly child-oriented parents. Since children are ever-scarcer public goods in aging societies, why has investment in them not been socialized more?

A 2009/2010-es időmérleg adatai alapján megvizsgáljuk a háztartásban végzett nem fizetett munka, illetve az e munka révén előállított javak és szolgáltatások fogyasztásának koreloszlásait nemek szerint. Kis leegyszerűsítéssel elvégezzük a háztartásgazdaságot leíró háztartási szatellitszámla elsődleges demográfiai elemzését. Eredményeink a férfiak és nők közötti munkamegosztás jól dokumentált különbségeit pontosítják. A női korprofilra sokkal erőteljesebben jellemző a kétcsúcspontú eloszlás. A nemek közötti különbség a gyermeknevelési életkorokban a legnagyobb, de minden 10 évesnél idősebb korcsoportban jelen van. Mindezt figyelembe véve, a háztartáson belüli időtranszferek igazi nyertesei nem a nemek, hanem a korcsoportok közötti újraelosztásban keresendők. A 30 és 53 év közötti férfiak nettó nyújtói és nem kedvezményezettjei az időtranszfereknek. Egy átlagos 54 év feletti férfi 1,3 havi keresetnek megfelelő értékű időtranszfert kap – egy átlagos gyermek azonban 0 és 17 év között 5,6 havi keresetnyit. A háztartásgazdaság nem csak nemek között, hanem életkorok között mozgat transzfereket.

The aim of this paper is to facilitate informed choice about indicators of economic sustainability and intergenerational fairness and decisions about their uses. We focus on four issues. First, we found that the same type of indicator measured at different levels – such as the general government, the (market) economy or the total economy, which includes both the market economy and the household economy – often leads to different conclusions. Second, sustainability analysis is frequently built on exogenously set age limits even though it is obvious that old age does not everywhere start at age 65; it did not always start there where it does today; and most likely it will not start there in the future. Third, we use our taxonomy of more than 80 indicators to spot holes, shortcomings and absences. Fourth, we show some structural differences between indicators of sustainability and fairness. Online Appendix

Background: While the importance of unpaid household labour is recognised in total economic output, little is known about the demographics of household production and consumption. Objective: Our goal is to give a comprehensive estimation on the value of household production and its consumption by age and gender and analyse nonmarket economic transfers in 14 European countries based on publicly available harmonised data. Methods: We introduce a novel imputation method of harmonised European time use (HETUS) data to the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) in order to assign time spent on home production to consumers in households and estimate time transfers. Moreover, monetary values are attributed to household production activities using data on earnings from the Structure of Earnings Survey (SES). Results: We show that the nonmarket economic life cycle of men differs from that of women. The gender gap in household production is not evenly distributed over the life cycle. Women of working age contribute the most in net terms, while the main beneficiaries of household goods and services are children and to a lesser extent adult men. These patterns are similar across countries, with variations in the gender- and age-specific levels of home production and consumption. Conclusions: In Europe, in the national economy, intergenerational flows are important in sustaining both childhood and old age. In contrast, in the household economy, intergenerational transfers flow mostly towards children. Contribution: We add a new focus to the research on household production: While keeping the gender aspect, we demonstrate the importance of the life cycle component in household production.

EIOPA has recently proposed to introduce standardized pan European personal pension products (PEPPs) that would be available in the accumulation phase, jointly with national personal pension plans. This paper analyzes the PEPPs from the perspective of the academic literature and proposes to use the PPR concept of Bovenberg and Nijman (2015) to categorize product characteristics, both in the accumulation phase as in the decumulation phase. The PPR concept can also be used to incorporate design features of the decumulation phase in the PEPP itself. A first important lesson to be learned from the academic literature is that the aim of stable income provision requires a framework where future asset returns are hedged rather than the asset only approach underlying the PEPPs. Whereas EIOPA proposes to allow switching between PEPPs only infrequently, the literature suggests that liquidity concerns are not a very convincing reason to restrict switching. Switching costs could be linked to the degree of liquidity of the portfolio. A better motivation for restriction on switching seems to be that investors might well put too much focus on recent investment performance as a predictor of future performance. As far as information disclosure is concerned more attention is recommended to the impact of biometric risks. More attention is also recommended for tax issues, because current tax provisions for national PPPs seem to be rooted in characteristics of the decumulation phase that can be avoided in the second regime. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential impact of the PEPP proposal on PPP provision in four European countries.

Households and welfare states both serve as vehicles of lifecycle financing through intergenerational transfers. Working-age people are net contributors, children and the elderly are net beneficiaries. However, there is a marked asymmetry in the socialization of intergenerational transfers. Working-age people pay taxes and social security contributions to care for the elderly as a generation, but they individually spend cash and contribute time to raise their own children. This results in asymmetric visibility of intergenerational transfers. Resources flowing to the elderly are near-fully observed in National Accounts (NA), but inter- and intra-household transfers are not registered there. Using data for ten European countries representing 70 percent of the population of the EU, we employ National Transfer Accounts (NTA) to include private transfers as well. In addition, as an extension of NTA, we use National Time Transfer Accounts (NTTA) to quantify the value of time transferred within and between households in the form of unpaid labor. Only a fifth of all resource transfers to children is registered in NA; another third is made visible by NTA, but nearly half is made visible only by NTTA. Contrary to much perceived wisdom, once intra-familial transfers of cash and time are incorporated, European societies transfer more resources to children than to the elderly.