Designated Associate Prof. Yoshihiko Kadoya of the Graduate School of Economics at Nagoya University has successfully determined anxious factors that cause anxiety about life, and mental stress and excess precautionary savings, resulting in a vicious circle in economics, after the age of 65. For this, the researcher has analyzed evidence from international research in Japan, the United States, China, and India.
In this study, three main factors were revealed. The first one is that anxiety about life, after age 65, is influenced by how people think about the future. The second, financial wealth, such as assets and savings from salary, can decrease anxiety about the future, but only if prices in society are stable. The third, surprisingly, is that living with one's children does not always decrease a person's anxiety about life after age 65.
People's anxiety about life after age 65 has reached an unprecedented level. This is particularly noticeable in Japan because the population belonging to the productive age is decreasing as birth rates are falling and aging population is increasing. Such an anxiety influences the social economics and people's health and quality life. These research results are expected to be relevant while designing government policies to ease people's anxiety about aging.
This study was published online in Review of Economics of the Household, the topmost journal on household economics, on September 28, 2015.
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