News archive

Netspar stimulates innovative academic research in all disciplines in the social sciences related to ageing and retirement. For the Netspar International Pension Workshop to be organized in January 2017, Netspar invites contributions from all areas of Netspar’s research program.

Topics of interest are:

• Wellbeing and welfare of older people

• Communications and choice

• Work, retirement, housing, and healthcare

• Savings, investments and insurance

• Institutions, governance and solidarity

In line with the topics above, Netspar contributes to the EU program MOPACT: Mobilising the potential of active ageing in Europe. The MOPACT-program is ending in February 2017 and Netspar invites MOPACT-contributors to present their results to the audience of the Netspar International Pension Workshop.

Description pension workshop January 2017

Date: January 18 – 20, 2017

Location Hampshire Hotel, Leiden, the Netherlands (16 minutes from Schiphol Airport)

The workshop consists of contributed paper sessions and invited talks.

Further information

Netspar International Pension Workshop site

The MOPACT Social Innovations Database has now been launched. Compiled as part of the ‘Active and healthy ageing as an asset’ research field, the database comprises 150 examples of interventions with a proven track record or promising potential to support active ageing and enable people to maintain health and wellbeing in old age. Each innovation is mapped to both MOPACT research fields and the domains of the Active Ageing Index, and accessible from a variety of routes across the website.

We are pleased to announce that the MOPACT household forecasts data has been fully integrated into the project website. As part of the work programme for the research field Economic Consequences of Ageing, stochastic household forecasts have been generated for Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway.

Applications closed on 31 March 2016.

Are you a PhD engaged in research on ageing and health who is interested in discussing and planning for your continued academic career together with others?

The Swedish National Graduate School for Competitive Science on Ageing and Health (SWEAH) invites junior researchers from both Sweden and abroad to apply to a course in how to take the next step in their careers. The course is open to researches from all disciplines engaged in research on ageing and health, who have obtained their PhD degree within the past three years. The number of participants will be limited to 20.

The course will be held in English and implemented as a distance learning course using an online learning platform and three face-to-face workshops located to different venues around Sweden. Participation in all the workshops organised is mandatory. The dates of the workshops are May 24-26, September 28-29, November 30 and December 1, 2016.

The main aim

The course prepares junior researchers for successful careers as independent senior researchers within the research field of ageing and health. A further aim is to enable participants to develop and deepen an interdisciplinary and integrative approach to research on ageing and health, including international perspectives. For more information see course syllabus.

Selection of participants

Selection of the participants will be done taking into account the variation of disciplines, date of PhD

degree, the written justification to participate, confirmation of 100% workshop participation, participation in previous postdoc courses, as well as country of origin in order to get a good distribution of participants.

Postdocs employed at any of the SWEAH partner universities and authorities will be given priority.

Expenses

The course is free of charge. SWEAH pays boarding costs, i.e. accommodation and meals, in connection with the three workshops. The travel costs are not covered by SWEAH.

We are pleased to announce that MOPACT Forum 3 is now open for registration, the event will discuss MOPACT’s findings and to collect ideas and guidance about innovative ways to maximise impact.

More information on our events page.

Professor Asghar Zaidi ​– MOPACT WP1 leader – ​is presenting a seminar organised by Columbia University in New York on 3 February 2016. This seminar will present ​k​ey findings of the Active ​A​geing ​I​ndex (AAI) and build a case of how AAI can develop further to become a global measure of ​older people’s active and healthy ageing and wellbeing. The AAI project was launched by the European Commission/UNECE in 2012 to address the need for a high-quality and independent evidence base to show how experiences of ageing at the individual level can be improved with higher levels of public policy to enhance labour market engagement and health, and to reduce dependency.

The latest book from the SHARE survey attempts to tackle some of the issues underpinning the grand challenge of demographic change. Using the international SHARE dataset the authors propose answers to some key questions:

• How do we Europeans age?

• How will we do economically, socially and health wise?

• How are these domains interrelated?

The book is titled ‘Ageing in Europe – Supporting Policies for an Inclusive Society’ and available online free of charge. It was released on 29 October in Brussels and is the latest major output from the SHARE project. The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe is a multidisciplinary and cross-national database on health, socio-economic status and social and family network of those aged over 50+ in 21 countries. Running since 2004 it includes data from over 110,000 individuals and has generated over 1,000 publications including 35 books and 500 journal articles.

A recent publication from the IMF explores the implications for national public finances of the expected changes in population age profile, from a demographic and economic perspective. The report The fiscal consequences of shrinking populations (PDF, 1.55MB) uses United Nations population projects to identify two key possible consequences for the public finances of national governments:

• An increase in spending on age-related programs (pensions and health) would rise, which without further reforms, could rise by 9-11% of GPD up to 2100. This would have substantial consequences for public spending, debt and taxation levels.

• A possible reduction in economic growth which could, in the absence of reductions in interest rates, make relative public debt reduction difficult.

A three-pronged policy response is proposed focusing on public finance reform and demographic interventions.

The Staff Discussion Note format showcases the latest policy-related analysis and research being developed by individual IMF staff and are published to elicit comment and to further debate and is written for a broad audience, making an ideal introduction to the fiscal and economic aspects of demographic change for non-specialists.

In July the European Parliament Research Service published a briefing paper which provides an excellent introduction to the ‘silver economy’ in the EU. The paper provides a succinct overview of the concepts and background to the silver economy, a concept which has received increased attention since the recent publication of a European Commission paper on the topic.

The silver economy is defined by the European Commission as “the economic opportunities arising from the public and consumer expenditure related to population ageing and the specific needs of the population over 50” and reflects the changing patterns of demand and supply which will be generated by an ageing population. It is a simple term for a highly ambitious aim: to use technologies to lower the cost of ageing and improve the lives of older people while increasing economic activity.

Four broad underpinning areas of action are identified in the paper:

• Maintaining and improving employment prospects for older workers

• The built environment and transport

• Increasing healthy life years

• Remote care and health monitoring

Specific EU level initiatives are already in place in many of these areas, and the paper concludes with links to further reading.