By 2032 a quarter of the British population will be over the age of 65. On November 3, a panel of economists, businessmen and social scientists will gather in Cambridge to discuss the issues surrounding this rapid demographic change.
By 2032 a quarter of the British population will be over the age of 65. On November 3, a panel of economists, businessmen and social scientists will gather in Cambridge to discuss the issues surrounding this rapid demographic change.
Even if demographic changes require people to retire later there’s actually a lot of evidence to suggest that people are better off staying in employment rather than leaving the labour market.
Dr Brendan Burchell
The panel will address the economic implications of aging; how changes in the labour market will affect the workers of the future and the potential impact of the looming housing crisis.
This talk is being held as part of Cambridge University’s Festival of Ideas, the UK’s biggest free festival celebrating the arts, humanities and social sciences.
The panel, chaired by Chris Giles, Economics Editor of the Financial Times, will include the University’s own Dr Gemma Burgess, Senior Research Associate in the Department of Land Economy.
She will be exploring the potentially unsustainable pressures of an ageing demographic who own £932 billion in equity in their homes, but who will in the coming years be relying ever more heavily on health and social care services.
She said: “Without intervention, social care expenditure would need to increase more than threefold – 325 per cent – by 2041 to meet demographic pressures. We need to address these pressures to ensure that people enjoy a good quality of life in older age.”
Dr Burgess will argue in support of findings made by the 2011 Dilnot Commission, which called for an increase in the means-tested threshold at which people are no longer entitled to subsidised care, as well as a cap on individuals’ contributions to their own social care costs, which might encourage the release of some of the hundreds of billions of pounds tied up in equity.
She added: “If the cost of care was capped, people would have more certainty about what their residential care was going to cost them, and so would know they could still leave an inheritance.”
This debate is also part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) nationwide Festival of Social Sciences. Other participants will include economist and business manager Phil Mullan, who will make the case that population aging is not to blame for the economic challenges we face in the future, but that in fact this belief is counter-productive when it comes to embracing the myriad social opportunities that arise from people living longer and healthier lives.
Also taking part will be George Magnus, former Senior Economic Adviser at UBS Investment Bank, who will discuss the impact of an aging society on family and social structures, and Dr Brendan Burchell, from Cambridge University’s Department of Sociology, who will be discussing his research into changing labour markets, and the implications of these changes for workers in the future.
Over the course of 20 years, Dr Burchell has recognised a consistent decline in the hours people are working, across Europe, at a time when other aspects of job quality seem to be resistant to change. He said, “If we want people to work for longer before retirement, we need to think of ways to encourage this, such as increasing the quality of jobs, so that more people see the positive benefits of working in jobs they enjoy.”
His research into job quality has revealed another interesting trend; “If we look at people who are still working in their sixties and above, they seem to enjoy their jobs; job satisfaction tends to increase with age. And when we look at the people who are not working, of the same ages, their wellbeing isn’t so good.
“Even if demographic changes require people to retire later there’s actually a lot of evidence to suggest that people are better off staying in employment rather than leaving the labour market.”
He will also touch on the issues and misconceptions that surround the current concern over mass-unemployment.
He added: “There has been all sorts of rhetoric about why even in the recession there are still unfilled job vacancies. I think probably the single area that needs to be looked at most is the quality of those jobs, because very often the jobs that are being offered are extremely poor quality.
“That has a much bigger effect than blaming young people for wanting to win X-Factor rather than getting a job with their local council.”
This event will be held in the Cambridge Union, 9A Bridge Street, at 5.30pm on Saturday, November 3.
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