EUROPEAN PAPERS ON THE NEW WELFARE

Abstract

In the light of the strategies recently activated by the European Union to prolong the working life of the workforce, this article aims to provide an overview of the initiatives currently implemented by companies in Italy with regard to their older employees. The study was conducted in 2005 within the framework of the European research project “Employment initiatives for an ageing workforce” on behalf of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions.
Read More

In the US, effective January 2007, the Pension Protection Act of 2006 allows traditional pension plans to pay retirement benefits to workers at least aged 62 while still working. Some believe this may encourage older employees to work longer to ease the labor shortage caused by retiring baby boomers. However, many of those continuing to work would be part-timers. So, filling the gap of an impending labor shortage requires drawing workers from people of any age. A human resource strategy of flexible work options for all ages could help generate more workers.
Read More

1. Introduction

The pensions systems of the enlarged Europe are gradually adapting their individual features to the requirements imposed by population ageing in a situation in which their financial sustainability is coming under ever increasing pressure. One of the main means by which this objective can be attained is the raising of the retirement age. In this regard almost all the recent pension reforms reflect the will to increase incentives for postponing retirement and for encouraging working lives to continue to an older age.
Read More

1. Introduction

Modern societies are trying to develop concepts that allow them to protect their citizens and at the same time stay competitive in the globalized markets. The approach of the new welfare state is no longer to arrange for full coverage of (ideally) all risks but to replace the existing extraordinarily expensive systems with more targeted and efficient approaches. They achieve this through requiring people to assume more risks individually and to organise adequate protection themselves. This is the so-called ‘risk shift from public to private’, a concept we have been developing for a number of years at The Geneva Association¹.
Read More

1. Introduction

At the end of 2006 Italian complementary social security arrangements were characterised by at least four weaknesses:
1. a low relationship between the actual number of members of the various complementary pension schemes and the level of their potential members (enrolment rate), apparent fruit of a ‘distorted early maturity’ of the sector²;
2. an insufficient unitary flow of financing attributable both to the limited size of contractually provided for payments, in the case of membership among employees, and to modest fiscal incentives granted to all members in the contributory phase;
Read More

1. Introduction

Demographic trends in many countries are unambiguous: while people are having fewer children, they are living longer than any generation before. The result is irreversible for the foreseeable future: the population is ageing at a rapid pace, both in the developed and developing world. This has dramatic social, cultural, and economic consequences. The insurance industry is one of the key players affected by those changes, as the ageing process directly impacts health care, long-term care, and pension provision.
Read More

Cristina Giudici: University “La Sapienza”, Rome.

1. Introduction

In the context of the European debate on ageing, a central question is the evolution of health status of population and in particular the trade-off between quantity and quality of life: is the increase of the individual length of life accompanied by an increase in the quality of life? And what do we mean by ‘quality’ of years lived?
Read More

1. Introduction

Life expectancy in the United States continues to rise, reaching another all-time high of 77.6 years. While long life is almost always celebrated, it is merely the quantitative aspect of one’s existence. How the quality of life of a long-lived individual is affected by a prolonged period of living is a question not posed often enough. One of the major concerns of a long life is the possibility of ill health since the chances of frailty and dependency tend to rise with age. This paper discusses issues concerning quantity of life and quality of life in the context of health and ageing. Although the frame of reference is that of the United States, some of the observations and implications may have relevance for other countries as well¹.
Read More

1. Introduction

There are two strands of thought on the elderly: on the one hand the specificity of the phenomena accompanying ageing is denied, thus freezing development in a perpetuating of young adulthood; on the other hand the old person is treated as a completely ‘other’ being, almost as if born old, spontaneously and threateningly risen from nothing. In that they originate in the defense of the Ego or in cognitive strategies, these attitudes, in various ways, have kept even science far from a genuine understanding of the ageing processes. Perhaps things are changing, and what psychology has so far taught us about the manner of perceiving and processing the stimuli which arise from social reality partly contributes to the change.
Read More

1. Introduction

Positron emission tomography (PET) and proton therapy (PT) are two major medical techniques. The former technique is used for diagnostics in oncology, neurology, psychiatry and cardiology, and the latter one for therapy in oncology. Most of the diseases they are applied to appear dominantly in older persons. Hence, these techniques play special roles in lengthening the life cycle and improving its quality.
Read More