The next seminar in the TAEN/LSE academic seminar series will take place on Thursday 16 December from 2.30 to 5.00 in the Graham Wallas Room, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE.
The seminar will discuss the whole question of how far demographic and health status changes at older ages will affect the employment patterns of older workers over the next twenty to thirty years. Currently, there is much discussion of gains in life expectancy at birth and at age 65. These are being used to justify raising state pension ages. At the same time, it is being argued that health status at older ages is improving and that therefore older people should be capable of working for a few years later in life. There are, of course, contrary views to this – for example, that recent life expectancy gains at age 65 have actually been quite modest, and that, for a substantial minority of the population, health status at older ages will worsen in the future. In addition, there is the complicating factor of changes in labour market demand in the future (against a background of possibly rising unemployment). Finally, it could be argued that the real issue is not health status per se but working capacity; and an individual’s self-defined working capacity is strongly affected by the availability of suitable jobs. The issues are not straightforward, therefore, and we hope that this meeting will go some way to analysing them.
Two experts in this field will be speaking:
Whilst membership of the seminar group is based on a strict quota of practitioners, researchers and policy originators, we attempt to share outputs with TAEN members generally. If you would like to join the group please let us know but bear in mind that numbers are limited.