This is the first part of a three-part paper on research on the elderly.
The objective of the paper is to present issues and research results in three
areas: economic status, retirement, and consumption and saving. This part
covers background material on demographic change, living arrangements, income
growth and labor force participation, and research on economic Status.
The major areas of research on economic status are: adjustments to
observed income to bring it closer to a welfare measure with the objective of
understanding whether the elderly are better off than the nonelderly; the
distribution of income among the elderly and in particular the extent and causes
of the high poverty level of elderly widows; wealth holdings, especially
sources of wealth and the importance of public
programs.