BICEPS/SSE Riga Research Seminar. Income and well-being in old age: the role of local contextual factors

You are kindly invited to a BICEPS/SSE Riga research seminar, which will take place on Thursday, March 28, at 17:00 at SSE Riga, room 411.

 

We are delighted to welcome Monika Oczkowska as the speaker. Monika is a research economist at CenEA (Poland). Her research interests lie in the fields of aging, the labor market, social exclusion, and gender equality.

 Title: Income and well-being in old age: the role of local contextual factors (co-authored with Ellam Kulati and Michal Myck)

Time: Thursday, March 28, 17:00

Venue: SSE Riga, room 411

Abstract

While the role of local contextual factors as determinants of well-being has been broadly acknowledged, the literature has focused primarily on identification of individual level determinants. Using a unique dataset linking regional and individual-level information we investigate the association of well-being and local conditions among a sample of Polish individuals aged 50 and over. The results confirm a high correlation of well-being with income, and we show that this correlation grows with the quality of local conditions. Similarly, a change in the composite measure of the latter is positively associated with well-being only for high income respondents. The analysis is set in the context of policy challenges related to population ageing with the need to combine direct financial support and provision of public services. The findings offer support for targeted financial transfers and call for improvements in accessibility to public services for low-income older individuals.