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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The challenge of longer life : economic burden or social opportunity?
— the report of the Working Group on the Implications of Demographic Change | | Corporate Author | Working Group on the Implications of Demographic Change, Catalyst Forum |
| Publisher | The Catalyst Forum, London, 2002 |
| Pages | 38 pp (Catalyst paper 7) |
| Source | The Catalyst Forum, 150 The Broadway, London SW19 1RX. |
| Keywords | Longevity ; Public finances ; Social economics. |
| Annotation | Anxiety about the "demographic time bomb" resulting from increased longevity is having a perverse effect. Instead of welcoming the medical and other developments that have led to people having healthier and longer lives, demographic trends have become a pretext for cutting back pension schemes and worrying about the future cost of social and health provision for older people. Members of the Catalyst Forum, a campaigning think tank of the left, question how far any present predictions of rising dependency ratios could or would be offset by older people working longer and/or by a general increase in the proportion of people of different ages being at work (the support ratio). Budgetary implications are discussed. So far, most industrialised countries have failed to adjust appropriately to the extension of healthy life expectancy. An ageing population is not without its problems, if the current form of age-related customs and policies persist. The measures and actions taken over the last quarter century have been in the wrong direction. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-021204207 B |
| Classmark | BGA: WN5: W4 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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