Overwhelming feedback was given by over 130 engaged citizens who participated in a workshop hosted by the FutuRes Policy Lab, which is coordinated by Population Europe. The participants who joined us online on September 26 were engaged citizens, volunteers, community organisers and NGO members from more than 20 European countries. They shared their policy suggestions for the coming new EU Commission.
These suggestions included housing policies to foster intergenerational living; fostering mixed-age social activities; special interventions to heighten awareness of ageist preconceptions, especially for employers and health care providers; as well as so called “Third places”, i.e. local spaces of interaction in towns and villages where churches or cafès no longer exist to serve that function.
“We should never underestimate the power of demography”, says Arnstein Aassve, a Professor of demography at Bocconi University and leading crisis resilience expert. Aassve is Head of Research at FutuRes. “The upper range of the age spectrum is becoming more and more a powerful group, both in elections and as consumers”, he said.
Meanwhile, it is becoming increasingly impossible for many people to access all the services of banks if they do not have the necessary digital skills. There are also more and more age limits being discussed in many aspects of life, for example access to volunteer work or political work. At the same time, there is a lack of understanding and shared experiences between the older and younger generations.
A detailed report on the workshop will be published in October.
The speakers were: Ilenia Gheno and Nena Georgantzi, AGE Platform Europe; Prof. Arnstein Aassve, FutuRes Project/Bocconi University