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Increasing longevity, while welcome, has far-reaching implications for the social contract between generations. These include eye-watering costs for health and social care, intense pressure on the old-age dependency ratio, changing power relations in politics and voting, and increasing pressure on in-work families. In a period of austerity, policy makers have chosen to protect older generations’ benefits and paid for this by slashing benefits for the young, in spite of growing evidence that wealth distribution has changed with older generations becoming wealthier than once thought. The paper concludes that age alone can no longer be used as a proxy for need. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This discussion paper uses original quantitative research and analysis undertaken by the Intergenerational Foundation (IF) (www.if.org.uk) which includes Freedom of Information requests to government departments. It brings together the think tank's research into demographics, ageing, policy, government debt and liabilities, benefit reform and spending patters in order to investigate the changing distribution of wealth across the generations.

It is clear that with changing distributions of wealth that age alone can no longer be used as a proxy for need. While older generations are becoming wealthier younger generations are becoming increasingly burdened by debt, with poorer prospects and being asked to maintain the current status quo.

The paper contains original research conducted by the IF (www.if.org.uk) into spending patterns across the generations and annual public sector pensions.

Ageing demographics are impacting employers around the world and, for many organisations, there are strong business reasons to develop strategies for managing the age profiles of their workplaces. Societal ageing is not necessarily bad news for business: older workers can be a valuable resource for employers in terms of skills, in-house knowledge and flexibility. Further, as populations age, businesses are delivering goods and services to an ageing market, and older workers can be a valuable resource. While ageing demographics can provide opportunities for the business community, there are significant challenges facing employers. For example, balancing the career interests and expectations of older and younger workers will necessitate new approaches to workforce planning, performance management and team building. As skilled workers become more scarce, employers need to also find ways to make better use of the talents and capabilities of older unemployed people. This chapter is written by representatives of employer networks in Europe and Asia. We discuss innovative approaches to age diversity of organisations on both continents. These include approaches to phased retirement, lifelong learning, flexible retirement and mentoring. In the final section, we suggest a research agenda which will generate practical knowledge for businesses which want to better manage workplace ageing. A business-focused research agenda includes improving the understanding of generations in the East and West, the intersection of age and other forms of diversity, lifelong learning, joblessness and providing the business case for businesses of different forms.

The aims of this paper are to summarise the rapid expansion in the proportion of the elderly across the globe and to highlight the main factors causing this. Specific areas of the globe will be focused on in more detail before the authors discuss some of the key challenges and consequences of global ageing for global society.

The paper is a literature review of major trends and implications of population ageing across the globe.

As a consequence of the global demographics of ageing, societies are being confronted with profound issues relating to illness and health care, access to housing and economic resources including pension provision. We have witnessed an unprecedented stretching of the human life span. This ageing of the global population is without parallel in human history. If these demographic trends continue to escalate, by 2050 the number of older people globally will exceed the number of young for the first time since formal records began, raising questions of the power of the nation state in the context of global ageing and of the changing nature of the global society that is emerging.

This is an original paper that aims at reviewing the major population trends across the Americas, Asia, Europe and Africa. The implications of demographic change are grounded in context of global changes that highlight social, economic and political implications of global ageing.

This chapter discusses the concept of productive ageing in Japan and Poland. Productive ageing is defined as any activity by older people which produces goods or services, whether paid or not. Productive ageing is slightly more narrowly defined than active ageing in so far it is focused on economic activity whereas active ageing covers a broader array of social activities. The chapter discusses activities of governments and employers in these three economies in promoting economic activities. The relative success of the Japanese economy in sustaining relative high levels of older employment is the result of active government interventions both in terms of adjusting pension policies to support working pensioners and intervening in employer practices. In Poland, government has struggled to raise older workers’ participation rates by raising pension ages and promoting older employment. In both countries, governments are recognising the economic impact of ageing demographics on the respective societies, but have had different levels of active involvement in intervening in employer practices. Finally, this chapter initiates a broader discussion of the situation in the discussed area not only in Poland, but in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

There are perhaps a considerable few among us who dream of retiring to the countryside, to spend our autumn years in a rural idyll. According to Dr Jane Atterton et al, more and more people are doing just that. Based on their research and with international comparisons, this article examines the realities of England's ageing rural population and explodes a few myths about this demographic group's contribution to rural life.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the reason for, and outcomes of, the New South Wales Land and Property Authority's (Lands) Vision 2013 plan designed to deal with a perceived impending human capital crisis in light of a rapidly ageing workforce. The research questions examined are “Did the perceived crisis eventuate?” and “What was the impact of implementing the plan to combat the threat of an ageing workforce?”

Using a case study approach, the paper incorporates semi‐structured interviews, planning papers and annual reports to critically examine the impact of implementing the Vision 2013 plan. Lands was chosen because in 2005 the ageing workforce issue motivated Lands to investigate how it would successfully manage organisational knowledge then and into the future. With the purpose of promoting discussion and critical reflection, we examine how Lands addressed the perceived crisis and the impact it had on the management of knowledge and human capital.

The ageing workforce crisis appears not to have been as significant as anticipated because of the combination of improved processes and training of new employees, allowing for knowledge transfer, making some old knowledge redundant and creating new knowledge. However, a gap exists between the new processes and tacit knowledge that can only be filled through experience. While the ageing workforce crisis seems to have abated, a new crisis of retention looms on the horizon.

The paper provides a longitudinal example of how a particular employer dealt with the threat of knowledge loss due to the retirement of older workers. It demonstrates that the threat cannot only be thwarted but can also help drive system and process improvements. The lessons learned, the authors argue, can be generalised to the public and private sector; however, they must be tempered within specific local, national and international contexts.

The paper provides a longitudinal observation of a public sector government business enterprise's implementation of a plan to address the issue of an ageing workforce. Many contemporary organisations face this issue so the results of the case study will be of value to those facing similar challenges.

Population ageing, coupled with economic uncertainty and a shifting workforce structure, has directed the attention of public and organizational policy makers toward the potential contribution of older workers and skilled migrants in meeting labor supply shortages in ageing populations. This chapter presents labor supply and demand scenarios for 10 OECD countries and examines trends in the labor force participation of older workers against the backdrop of changes to the nature of work in an era of globalization, casualization, and, increasingly, automation. Brief analysis of each country’s situation and policy responses indicates that China, Japan, and Korea stand out as being at particular risk of being unable to maintain growth without undertaking drastic action, although their areas of focus need to differ. A limitation of the study is that GDP projections used in labor demand analysis were based on historical rates and represented past potential and a long-run average of historic economic output. Future research might also undertake comparative analysis of case studies addressing different potential solutions to workforce ageing. A key implication of the study is that there is a need to take a blended approach to public policy regarding older workers in a changing labor market. Where migration has historically been a source of labor supplementation, this may become a less viable avenue over the near future. Future shortfalls in labor imply that economies will increasingly need to diversify their sources of workers in order to maintain economic growth. For public policy makers the challenge will be to overcome public antipathy to migration and longer working lives.