In upcoming decades, population ageing in the Baltic Sea States is inevitable due to long-term population trends such as low birth rates and increasing life expectancy, as well as migration. As a consequence, the labour force will substantially shrink and become significantly older. Population ageing, therefore, will not only exert pressure on the sustainable funding of pension and healthcare systems, but also represents a challenge to economic prosperity, social cohesion and social sustainability between generations as a whole.
On 20 June 2018, the Secretariat of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) and Population Europe organised a High-Level Policy Expert Meeting in Stockholm on ‘Increasing the Labour Force Participation of Older People in the Baltic Sea States: Challenges and Chances’. The aim was to discuss with policy experts from research, policy and civil society what the main challenges and most promising policy measures are in regard to increasing the employment level of older people in the Baltic Sea Region.
Participants included:
- Daria Akhutina (Senior Adviser, Secretariat of the Council of the Baltic Sea States)
- Robert Anderson (Head of Social Policies Unit, European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound), Ireland)
- Dr Paul Becker (Guest Researcher, Population Europe / Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany)
- Prof. Tommy Bengtsson (Lund University, Sweden)
- Dr hab. Agnieszka Chłoń-Domińczak (Warsaw School of Economics / Educational Research Institute in Warsaw, former Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Poland)
- Dr Andreas Edel (Executive Secretary, Population Europe / Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany)
- Julia Fedorova (Committee for Labour and Employment, Government of St. Petersburg, Russian Federation)
- Bernd Hemingway (Deputy Director General, Secretariat of the Council of the Baltic Sea States)
- Noora Järnefelt (Senior Researcher, Finnish Centre for Pensions, Finland)
- Daiva Liugiene (Labour Market Division, Ministry of Social Security and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania)
- Guy Lööv (Swedish National Pensioners' Organisation (PRO), Sweden)
- Dr Johannes Rausch (Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy / Munich Center for the Economics of Aging, Germany)
- Christian Råbergh (Norden Association, Sweden)
- Ingemar Rödin (Department of Regulations, Swedish Work Environment Authority, Member of the Expert Group on Occupational Safety and Health of the NDPHS, Sweden)
- Dr Mi Ah Schoyen (Senior Researcher, Centre for Welfare and Labour Research, Norwegian Social Research (NOVA), Norway)
- Johanna Schütz (Guest Researcher, Population Europe / Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany)
- Philippe Seidel (Policy and EP Liaison Officer, AGE Platform Europe, Belgium)
- Erik Simonsen (Director of the Unit ‘Labour Market Policy’, Confederation of Danish Employers, Denmark)
- Zane Sime (Communication and Research Coordinator, Secretariat of the Council of the Baltic Sea States, Sweden)
- Franz Thönnes (former MP, former Parliamentary State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and Member of the Standing Committee of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, Germany)
- Alona Tutova (Senior Expert Labour Market Policy Department, Ministry of Welfare of the Republic of Latvia)
- Dr Ann Zimmermann (Research Scientist, Population Europe / Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Germany).