Europe is ageing. Fewer and fewer Europeans are being born, and while younger generations increasingly concentrate in large cities, much of the remaining territory is falling behind in development. Long an existential problem in Eastern Europe, these trends are increasingly fuelling inequality [...]Read the full article
“Everywhere I go within care and speak to our members, they ask us, why can NHS staff negotiate their pay on a national level, but we can’t? The care workforce is bigger than that of the NHS, and the skill sets are very similar. Collective bargaining is the first level of investment we would [...]Read the full article
At the same time as consideration is being given to extending our expiry date as workers, there are people in the last stage of their careers who simply cannot find a job.Read the full article
“As centuries of conquest have shown, once the land has been conquered and the people uprooted, once new rulers, laws and languages have been imposed, and the names of people and places have been changed, all that remains is memory and the collective desire to keep it [...]Read the full article
As rural areas increasingly empty out, communities are left with fewer and fewer resources, whether public or private, to address dependency and loneliness. Elderly inhabitants are forced to choose between living alone or spending the final stage of their lives in a nursing home far from their [...]Read the full article
Tuscany Bell:“Long-term care facilities are subsidised to a large extent by public money. When financial risks aimed solely at increasing profitability do not pay off, it is the state which must ultimately step in to ensure the welfare of care recipients, once again from the public [...]Read the full article
Maeve O’Sullivan:The world is reeling from recent tech job losses and the global recession. But Ireland is well positioned to respond to these challenges if it can address its labour market inequality.Read the full article
Marga Zambrana:Experts and international organisations warn that only those who are able to quickly adapt to change through lifelong learning will survive.Read the full article
Workers and trade unions have long argued that the management of dependency care – like health and education – should be public. They argue that as public sector employees, not only would their working conditions improve but so too would the care they [...]Read the full article
Jan Willem Goudriaan :Organising care on a not-for-profit basis is good for society, good for taxpayers, good for people who need care and support, and good for care workers.Read the full article
As the ageing of the world’s population accelerates, what of the older people on the move within its fastest ageing region, Latin America?Read the full article
Fundación Alternativas:Attempts to implement top-down mechanisms, such as the single digital payment, that leave out a significant percentage of the world’s population will only result in poverty and exclusion. Virtual money already coexists seamlessly with physical money. But paper banknotes still have a lot of use [...]Read the full article
A report by Alzheimer Europe estimates that around 1.3 million people in Italy suffer from dementia. If ageing trends continue at their current pace, this figure could double by 2050. The country faces a major challenge in providing care for this growing number of [...]Read the full article
Elderly dependants have been hard hit by recent blows to the Lebanese economy. They feel abandoned by the state and are having to turn to charity to survive. Even before the recent crises, the country’s public health and social services were hugely lacking and care for the elderly was almost [...]Read the full article
The worst dictatorship in the world could never even dream of having a mechanism that would allow it to get into people’s subconscious, and what’s worse is that it’s in the hands of private companies that sell their services.Read the full article
Despite having shut down the majority of its reactors following the fatal accident in Fukushima, Japan’s commitment to nuclear energy remains firm. The government is now being urged to construct a nuclear disposal site and the top contenders for its location are villages with ageing populations [...]Read the full article
As demand for care expands across Europe, and the public sector fails to meet it, digital platforms are moving in to fill the gap; in turn, they are redefining the way in which home care is organised.Read the full article
Japan is celebrating 20 years of a social care system that provides cover in the final stages of life. In health crises like the current one, this policy can make fundamental differences in the quality of life and life expectancy of the [...]Read the full article
More than half of the world’s population is living in cities, a proportion set to reach 70 per cent by the year 2050, when one in six people will be over 65 – more than enough reason to redesign our streets to fit everyone’s needs.Read the full article
“We often reduce seniors to economic cost or demographic burden. They are spoken of in a very dehumanising way and we wanted to change that by showing them as people in their own right, not just as clichés.”Read the full article
One (accidental and positive) effect of the economic crisis has been that it has led to new intergenerational relations. Young and old help and support each other in the framework of intergenerational living programmes.Read the full article
Competition between countries for migrant labour is going to increase, so “simply opening the door is not enough. Laws are urgently needed to build a society in which foreign workers, migrants, can live. It’s in the national interest.”Read the full article
In 2022, only 58 per cent of task hours will be performed by humans, and between now and then, workers will need to have dedicated an average of 101 days to retraining and upskilling. But who is going to pay for it? Employers? Governments? The workers [...]Read the full article
“Croatian trade unions are not xenophobic, but it is in nobody’s interest to see the brain drain continue while we import a much cheaper workforce. This can only serve the interests of employers.”Read the full article
Dijana Šobota:The unions needed to gather 373,568 signatures (representative of 10 per cent of all Croatian voters) for the referendum to be held; we secured 748,624, more than twice the number required.Read the full article
For many years, the LGBTI community ignored its own elders. Today, the first generations that fought for equal rights are reaching retirement age and the issue has been forced on the community.Read the full article
Older people are living longer and better than ever. Old age is nothing like what it used to be. Yet we are still trapped in the “age-stereotype paradox”. No matter how much it changes, society continues to attach the same stereotypes as ever to old age: illness, boredom, loneliness and [...]Read the full article
Carmen Vizán Rodríguez:The decline in the labour share in the economy, linked to the shrinking of the state, globalisation, financialisation, technological change, corporate concentration and the fall in workers’ bargaining power, has major socioeconomic and political [...]Read the full article
Between a lack of investment and chronic corruption, Ukraine’s healthcare system has deteriorated significantly in recent years. For many Ukrainians – especially those with modest incomes – the best option is simply not to get sick.Read the full article
While the gig economy continues to swallow up secure jobs, independent craftspersons worked on a ‘gig’ basis long before the digital shift.Read the full article
Europe’s population is ageing and EU member states are looking for ways to ensure the sustainability of their pensions systems. But should this quest be limited to purely budgetary considerations?Read the full article
Karine Clément:For many Putin supporters seduced by his image as protector of ordinary people, the evidence is now clear: the interests of the working and middle classes count for little compared to those of the economic and financial elites.Read the full article
Nena Georgantzi :“There is something fundamentally flawed with those assumptions that consider the discrimination and exclusion of older people as more acceptable than the discrimination and exclusion of people on the ground of their gender, race or [...]Read the full article
Today, scientists speak about loneliness as if it were a chronic disease. They say it is as harmful as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, that it kills more people than obesity.Read the full article
Japan’s cooperative sector is one of the biggest in the world, with over 65 million members – nearly half of Japan’s 127 million-strong population – and over US$145 billion in yearly turnover.Read the full article
“The cultural barriers are such that the woman must always support [their husband], whatever the extent of the violence, or risk being stigmatised by her own social circle.”Read the full article