Population ageing is now a major policy concern in many countries around the world. Societies are changing quickly as more of us are living to more advanced ages and older people are becoming ever greater proportions of our populations. The economic, health and social characteristics of older persons have also evolved. This phenomenon brings both challenges and opportunities and requires carefully devised and evidence-based policy responses.
Data help to better understand and promote the role of older persons in the development process and to assess their economic, social, health and cultural conditions. Countries need to therefore strengthen their statistical systems further to ensure age-disaggregation in their data collection. The efforts to evolve data systems should include not just data collection for older age groups but also more fine-grained disaggregation by age and sex to fill the evidence gaps on life course processes of ageing.
Many National Statistical Institutes (NSOs) around the world have now recognised the importance to improve the availability, accessibility and comparability of statistical data in support of ageing-related policy making. There is a strong desire to understand better how the age-disaggregated data could be best produced and what learnings can be drawn from other more statistically advanced countries in this respect.
The Titchfield City Group on Ageing (TCGA) was established with these considerations in mind in March 2018 with the endorsement of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC). City groups are informal, voluntary groups of experts, primarily from national statistical agencies, formally established through the UNSC. The Washington City Group on Disability Statistics is one particularly successful example of this approach to international cooperation on data.
Introducing The Titchfield City Group on Ageing
The work programme of the TCGA will be conducted during the period 2018-2023, with the help of NSOs around the world, working alongside the UN agencies (UN Women, UN Dept of Economic and Social Affairs, UN Population Fund, UN Development Programme, World Health Organisation), International Civil society organisations, (HelpAge International and the AARP), UK’s DFID and Academia. The lead is provided by the UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The TCGA is currently holding its Second Technical Meeting here in Daejeon, South Korea, 11-13 June 2019. The meeting was hosted by Statistics Korea and steered by the ONS. Close to 50 representatives of the NSOs around the world and other stakeholders participated in the meeting and contributed to defining the stepping stones of different work strands of the future work programme of the TCGA.
Key features of ageing data
One of the themes emerging is to better appreciate three key features of age-disaggregated data and ageing-related statistics.
- Firstly, population ageing is often understood in a demographic context, in fact, population ageing brings changes across many spheres of society. The ageing data should therefore be cross-cutting, and it should concern multiple areas of social, economic and demographic statistics as well as government finances and public sector statistics.
- Secondly, the ageing data are often referred to as the information about the situation of people of a specific age group, such as the health and well-being of older persons. Instead, data and evidence is required about the timing of important transitions of life and how younger phase of life are important in determining outcomes in older ages.
- Thirdly, the ageing data should not be just about the individual attributes of older persons and their earlier lives, but it should also include information about the enabling environment in which they have lived.
Therefore, the TCGA will develop a substantive conceptual and analytical framework to understand fully the multiple domains of ageing and the processes of ageing on which countries should aim to collect ageing-related data.
Six Work Strands of the TCGA
Since its inception at the 1st Tehnical Meeting in Chichester, the UK, 26-27 June 2018, the TCGA has been making progress in its six work strands:
- Assessment of current evidence and identifying gaps
- Horizon scanning and future needs of data users
- Conceptual and analytical framework
- Alignment to SDGs and other relevant policy frameworkds
- Standardisation and Harmonisation Guidelines
- Platform for sharing data and information
In the first two years (2018-2020), a greater emphasis is placed on the progress in Work Strand 1 (WS1), Work Strand 3 (WS2) and Work Strand 5 (WS5).
Work Strand 1 provides an assessment of the availability of age-disaggregated data in existing data sources using from a selected group of countries.
Work Strand 2 focusses on anticipating future data needs and how well countries are currently set up to meet these needs.
Work Strand 3 will help identify the concepts and analytical frameworks to measure and to ensure consistency of understanding, building on existing work and recognising variations across countries.
Work Strand 4 recognises the importance of collaboration, sharing best practices and by considering ageing within the context of the Sustainable Developent Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 1 (to end poverty in all its forms everywhere), Goal 3 (to ensure healthy lives and promote wellbeing for all at all ages), and Goal 5 (to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls).
Work Strand 5 will focus on making recommendations towards age-standardisation enabling comparative analysis and providing meaningful measures of progress. Harmonisation of data and concepts will also be sought so that countries have consistency of data and can draw suitable comparisons.
Work Strand 6 will develop a platform for sharing information reflecting the value in sharing best practices internationally.
Potential impact of the TCGA
In all countries, the availability of credible relevant data will form the backbone of ageing-related policies. Countries around the world have different capacities in this resepect and the work of the TCGA offers a great opportunity for mutual learning for countries involved.
With better data countries will be able to effectively measure changes in the need for housing, health, transport and social care that could occur with larger numbers of older people in the future. Recommendation towards improvements in data such as linkage of administrative data, Big Data and increased use of longitudinal studies will help us identify future opportunities for better ageing-related research and policymaking.
About the Author
Professor Asghar Zaidi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. Asghar is Professor of Gerontology at Seoul National University, Korea and Visiting Professor at London School of Economics and Political Science, London.
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We welcome your comments on this or any of the Institute's blog posts. Please feel free to email comments to be posted on your behalf to administrator@ageing.ox.ac.uk or use the Disqus facility linked below. Her dissertation focuses on demographic change, intergenerational justice and participation.
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Comments Welcome: We welcome your comments on this or any of the Institute's blog posts. Please feel free to email comments to be posted on your behalf to administrator@ageing.ox.ac.uk or use the Disqus facility linked below.
