Chapter 17. The HRS Around the World Surveys

In this chapter, we first discuss the history of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) network of surveys and how its development is intertwined with the major aging trends around the world. This discussion includes the origins of the HRS model, the main distinguishing features of the HRS-type surveys, their evolution over the last decades, and the countries now included in the group. In doing so, we will also highlight a few of the large range of findings from studies that have used the HRS-style data to advance our understanding of population aging and successfully inform the policy and business practices designed to address the associated challenges. Next, leveraging the breadth of information contained in this data network and the world's ever-changing socioeconomic and institutional landscape, we identify several promising avenues for new research. Such opportunities are ample and diverse, ranging from frailty and financial abuse to health care arrangements in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the causal relation between reciprocity and well-being. Finally, several data innovation options, both at the level of the life domains investigated and of new countries potentially joining the HRS network, are also discussed.