The Emergence and Application of Active Aging in Europe

Abstract

Western Europe is the world's oldest region and, in global comparative terms, it is only Japan that shares this distinction. Both of them also have the most prominent demographic ageing trends over the next 20 years. This population transformation results from the unique historical combination of declining fertility and falling death rates which, together with decreases in disease and disability, leads to increased longevity. The ageing of the post-war ‚baby boomer‘ generations started to boost this ageing process in Europe from 2005. While this sketch of the quiet demographic revolution is familiar to many other dimensions of it are less well known. For example, in the world's leading countries in terms of longevity (Australia, Ireland, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland) a linear increase has been observed since 1840! This means that there is no reason to expect the rise in life expectancy will level off in the foreseeable future (Oeppen and Vaupel, 2002). The remarkable persistence of life expectancy increases – 2.4 years on average each decade for women and 2.2 years for men – has not been understood until very recently and this helps to explain why earlier population forecasts were prone to error. Moreover, the sheer scale of the demographic changes still taking place have not been widely grasped. A mid-range projection for the EU shows that, by 2050, the proportion aged 65 and over will have risen by 77 per cent while the working age population will have fallen by 16 per cent (Economic Policy Committee, 2005). Not surprisingly for such a large and diverse continent Europe's ageing has not progressed uniformly nor will it in the future. A large number of sub-regions in Europe saw their populations cease to grow and age rapidly before the end of the last century and this will extend to the majority, some of which will experience population reductions, before 2030. With the additional impact of migration some parts of France, Germany, Italy and Spain will have average ages between 44 and 50 by 2015 (Walker and Maltby, 1997).