LLAKES Research Seminar, 23 May 2012, 3.00 pm, Room 828, Institute of Education

Dr Martin Weale

“Education and its effects on income, health and survival for those aged 65 and over”

This paper looks at the benefits of education which accrue to people after retirement. Two types of benefit are examined. First of all, income after retirement is, in many cases, influenced by employers’ pension contributions. The effect of education on these is omitted from studies based on data sources such as the Labour Force Survey. Secondly, education may influence both health and survival prospects, both directly and indirectly, through an influence on income, with income influencing health and survival. With monetary value often put on healthy life, any influence of education on expected healthy life years should be added to the effect of direct influence on income.

The study is carried out using the British Household Panel Survey. While there is a relationship between income and education after retirement, a substantial component of which can be attributed to employer contributions, the influences of education on health and survival appear much more prominent among men than among women. For men, significant effects are found even after conditioning on smoking behaviour and health as reported at the age of sixty-five. For women these effects, whilst also generally positive, are not statistically significant.

Martin Weale is a member of the LLAKES research team. However, his main activity is as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, which he joined in 2010. This followed a term of fifteen years as Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Before this he worked as a lecturer in Economics at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Clare College and, for two years after graduating, as an Overseas Development Institute Fellow at the National Statistics Office in Malawi.

He has researched a large number of aspects of applied economics at both macro and micro-economic levels. As part of his work for LLAKES he has looked at the returns to life-long learning and the incentives to undertake life-long learning. Other research has looked at a range of issue connected with savings and pensions. He has also carried out a substantial amount of work on various aspects of economic statistics.

Martin Weale was appointed CBE for his services to Economics in 1999 and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 2001. He was a member of the Board of Actuarial Standards from 2006-2010.

Cambridge University, from which he graduated with a BA in Economics in 1977, awarded him an ScD in Economics in 2006. He received an honorary doctorate from City University in 2007.
Attendance at the seminar is free, but please notify your intention to attend to llakesevents@ioe.ac.uk.