Education as a partial remedy for the economic pressure of population ageing

Kelin, Ema (author), Istenič, Tanja (author), Sambt, Jože (author)

Purpose – Population ageing will bring economic challenges in the future. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether increased educational level could mitigate the consequences of population ageing on economic sustainability, measured as the gap between labour income and consumption. Design/methodology/approach – Using the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) methodology, the authors decompose labour income and consumption by age and educational level (low, medium and high) and compare obtained age profiles with those calculated conventionally. In addition, using the population projections by age and educational level, the authors project both profiles to 2060 for selected EU countries and assess future economic sustainability. Findings – The results show that the highly educated have a significantly higher surplus for a longer period then those with lower and medium education. Therefore, the improved educational level of individuals will have a substantially positive impact on labour income in the future—on average by about 32% by 2060 for all EU countries included. However, as the better educated also consume more, higher production does not fully translate into improved economic sustainability, but the resulting net effect is still positive at about 19%. Originality/value – The authors present for the first time an NTA by education for 15 EU countries and show the importance of including education in the analysis of the economic life cycle. The authors also show that increased educational level will mitigate the consequences of population ageing on economic sustainability in the future.

• Language: English
• Keywords: learning, ageing, sustainable development, labour income, consumption, educational level, population ageing, economic sustainability
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 37-54
• Numbering: Vol. 44, no. 9
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-144978
• UDC: 314
• ISSN on article: 0143-7720
• DOI: 10.1108/IJM-03-2022-0126
• COBISS.SI-ID: 135355139
• Publication date in RUL: 27.03.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: International journal of manpower
• Shortened title: Int. j. manpow.
• Publisher: Emerald
• ISSN: 0143-7720
• COBISS.SI-ID: 25646848

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: izobraževanje, staranje, trajnostni razvoj

Projects

• Funder: EC - European Commission
• Funding programme: FP7
• Project number: 613247
• Name: Ageing Europe: An application of National Transfer Accounts (NTA) for explaining and projecting trends in public finances
• Acronym: AGENTA

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P5-0128
• Name: Izzivi vključujočega in trajnostnega razvoja v prevladujoči paradigmi ekonomskih in poslovnih znanosti