Thematic Platform "Ageing"

WIFO's "Thematic Platforms" bundle the research of the scientific staff from different perspectives on common economically and socially relevant issues. In their function as information hubs, they offer direct access to the relevant WIFO publications and contact to the respective experts.
 

The Thematic Platform "Ageing" bundles and further develops WIFO's micro- and macroeconomic expertise on the various aspects of ageing.

Demographic change – in particular the increase in the elderly population or immigration and emigration – has significant economic effects, which become more important in the future. In view of these changes, questions of employment opportunities in an ageing society, qualifications and health aspects from gainful employment to care for the elderly arise at the individual level. At the company level, issues such as employability and productive use of an (ageing) labour force, labour costs and the qualification structure of the workforce are of primary importance.

WIFO Themenplattform Nachhaltigkeit

At the institutional level, demographic change is creating new framework conditions for the tax and contribution system as well as for the financing of welfare state services such as pensions and care for the elderly. The ageing of the population also necessitates changes in the public service provision. At the macroeconomic level, demographic changes affect consumption, government budgets and GDP, as the dependent population increases relative to the working population. An ageing society is inevitably confronted with a change in the structure of public expenditure, which raises new distributional issues.

These different perspectives and the multidimensional effects and interactions need to be quantified as a precondition for evidence-based policy advice. WIFO has a multifaceted expertise, model and data infrastructure at its disposal to assess the effects of ageing on long-term economic growth, on the welfare position of households, on the sustainability of the social security systems, etc. in Austria.

The Thematic Platform "Ageing" pursues the following objectives:

  • empirical foundation of economic and social implications of demographic changes,
  • analysis of interactions between demographic shifts and individual, company, institutional, spatial and macroeconomic developments.

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