Professor John Ermisch (University of Essex) has presented the lecture: 'Population Ageing: Crisis or Opportunity', as part of the OIA Michaelmas Seminar Series, on 28 October 2010.
Population ageing reduces the working population relative to the number of pensioners by one-third over the next 30 years. The challenge presented by this development is how best to support pensioners’ incomes without suppressing the net incomes of the working population and capital accumulation too much. The ability of private savings and occupational pensions to meet this challenge is doubtful. There is a related issue of inter-generational equity: how do we share the burden of population ageing between generations, rather than passing it on to future generations. Given the uncertainty about future demographic and economic developments, it is important to have adaptable or self-correcting policies to address population ageing.
John Ermisch is a professor of economics at the University of Essex (since 1994) and a Fellow of the British Academy (since 1995). From 1991-2001, he was one of the co-editors of the Journal of Population Economics, and was President of the European Society for Population Economics in 1989. His research is broadly concerned with how the family and markets interact.
He is the author of An Economic Analysis of the Family (Princeton University Press, 2003), Lone Parenthood: An Economic Analysis (Cambridge University Press, 1991) and The Political Economy of Demographic Change (Heinemann, 1983), as well as numerous articles in economic and demographic journals.
> Further information about Michealmas OIA 2010 Seminar Series
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