Harmonizing measures of cross-country policies for aging research: applications to education, pension, and long-term care systems

Mauricio Avendano, David Knapp, Mario Padula, Giacomo Pasini and Jere Behrman

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, 2026, vol. 81, issue Supplement_1, S75-S86

Abstract: ObjectivesDecisions over the life course, such as stopping school, retiring, or receiving care, are shaped by public policies and have profound implications for health and aging. Yet, studying the impact of these policies is hampered by a lack of standardized and harmonized policy data, making peer review and validation difficult. The Gateway to Global Aging Data addresses these barriers by collecting, harmonizing, and documenting policies over time on education, retirement, and long-term care (LTC) systems, enabling linkages to longitudinal data from international aging cohorts, thus accelerating research on health and aging.MethodsPolicies are collected using a strict protocol, documented using a common terminology, reviewed by country experts, and made publicly available. Subsequently, policy measures are linked based on individual characteristics in the international network of health and retirement studies and used to highlight cross-country differences in behavioral responses.ResultsApplication of the harmonized measures demonstrates that policies influence behavior. This is evidenced by changes in years of schooling through compulsory schooling and educational tracking laws, the timing of retirement through legislation on state pension age, and the use of formal care through legislation on eligibility rules for publicly funded LTC benefits.DiscussionHarmonized data on public policies enable research on how changes caused by policymakers shape human behavior and, ultimately, health outcomes. These data can be linked to surveys across the world. The Gateway Policy Explorer’s tools enable accountable and robust policy research on the causal impacts of health and aging policies.

Keywords: Cross-national comparison; policy; Retirement; Long-term care; Education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbaf224 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:geronb:v:81:y:2026:i:supplement_1:p:s75-s86.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

The Journals of Gerontology: Series B is currently edited by Psychological Sciences - S. Duke Han, PhD and Social Sciences - Jessica A Kelley, PhD, FGSA

More articles in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B from The Gerontological Society of America Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().