Europe’s population ageing – The debate is finally launched

AGE, the European Older People’s Platform, warmly welcomes the debate that was launched by Commissioner Špidla today with the long-awaited Green Paper ‘Facing demographic changes, a new intergenerational solidarity’.

Anne-Sophie Parent, Director of AGE stressed that “The response to demographic changes must be approached realistically and without the implicit alarmism that is contained in over-used phrases about “time bombs” and “crises”. We believe that the increased life expectancy and improved health of older people is one of the proudest achievements of recent social and economic development in Europe”.

So far, the debate has focused too much on the quantitative changes in an ageing society: pensions and health care expenditure, older worker employment rates, old-age dependency ratios etc. These are important discussions, but the necessary qualitative changes to the economic, social and political structures of society deserve more attention. As more people live longer lives, diversity amongst older people continues to grow and chronological age becomes an increasingly inaccurate indicator of whether people are active or passive, healthy or sick, wealthy or poor, etc. In an ageing society, therefore, we need to reflect about the terms ‘old’ and ‘age’ and how we use them.

The policies of many Member States have yet to respond adequately. The cultural framework of policy-makers across the EU for understanding the role of older people in society needs to catch up with the realities of our demography. The suggestions in the Green Paper on a life-course approach for one’s career, the necessary changes to workplace to accommodate the needs for older workers to remain active in the labour market are all interesting proposals that await concrete implementation. “In our view, the response to the demographic change must

be based on intergenerational and intragenerational fairness and solidarity”, said Parent. AGE also welcomes the special focus on the ‘very old’ section of the population, aged 80+.

AGE is, however, more critical of the rosy picture that the Commission paints of the situation of seniors, aged 65 to 79, as all having full pension rights, high mobility and increased levels of consumption of goods and services. A closer look at European poverty statistics show that this picture does not accurately reflect reality: Whereas some older people enjoy high levels of income from private sources, many more rely on state pensions. Within the EU15 alone, 16% of older men and 21% of older women are at a risk of poverty and in some Member States the at-risk-of-poverty rate among older women is as high as 51%!

AGE hopes that this Green Paper will offer a real opportunity to all actors to engage in this debate and propose appropriate responses to the challenge of demographic ageing with the necessary realism.