Sergei Scherbov at the World Bank report launch on aging societies in Europe and Central Asia

MEDIA

On 17 June World Population Deputy Program Director Sergei Scherbov participated as a panel member at the launch of the World Bank regional report on aging in Europe and Central Asia. The panel discussion can be watched at http://live.worldbank.org/aging-societies-seizing-the-opportunities-in-europe-and-central-asia

At this World Bank event a distinguished panel shared views on how current demographic trends will impact economic growth, fiscal balances, health and long-term care systems, pensions, social welfare and labor markets in countries across Europe and Central Asia; and how policy makers can meet the challenges of aging and also seize the opportunities.

The report Golden Aging: Prospects for Healthy, Active and Prosperous Aging in Europe and Central Asia aims to provide a better understanding of the aging process and its links with the economy.

Moderated by Journalist Alison Langley, the panel included IIASA's World Population Deputy Program Director Sergei Scherbov, World Bank Group Chief Economist Hans Timmer, OECD Senior Economist Hervé Boulhol, and Austrian Federal Ministry of Finance Deputy Head Peter Bart.

About the speaker

Sergei Scherbov is Principal Investigator of the Reassessing Ageing from a Population Perspective (Re-Ageing) project at IIASA that, among other things, ascertains the extent to which advanced societies are actually aging in multiple dimensions, including health, cognitive abilities, and longevity. Together with IIASA colleague Warren Sanderson, Scherbov has developed new measures of age and aging in demographic research. They suggest to broaden research methods to account for significant increases in life expectancy, as the focus on chronological age of people alone provides a limited picture of the process, one that is often not appropriate for either scientific study or policy analysis. Their groundbreaking results have been published in Nature and Science and other high level journals.