Ireland: Conference Hears about Active Aging and Keeping Older Workers

Angela Long reports that conferees were told that "Ireland faces serious economic consequences unless it encourages older people to remain in the workforce." The conference--"Active Ageing & Labour Market Trajectories" was organized by the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) and ASPEN (the Active Social Policies European Network).

Among other things, Long reports that Professor Brendan Whelan, Research director of TILDA, said that the number of working people for everyone over the age of 65 will fall from four to 2.5 by 2027. Other speakers spoke of concerns for funding pensions because of these changes, but "Donal Casey, chief executive of Irish Life Corporate Business, said that Ireland is in a better position than most other countries to cope with the problem" because it has a comparatively young population, unlike other countries, such as Germany and Japan, which are already feeling the impact of the aging population.

Source: Irishheath.com "Keep older workers, experts say" (June 26, 2007)