Ageing

WIFO has a wide range of expertise in quantifying the impact of ageing on individuals and firms, on economic growth, on the welfare position of households and on the sustainability of social security systems.

The thematic focus "Ageing" bundles WIFO's micro- and macroeconomic and institutional expertise as well as its model and data infrastructure for the analysis of ageing.

At the individual level, questions of employment opportunities, qualifications and the health aspects of employment and long-term care are analysed. At the company level, the focus is on questions of employability and the productive use of an (ageing) labour force, labour costs and the qualification structure of workforces. An ageing society is inevitably confronted with changes in the provision of public services and in the structure of expenditure, which also raise new distributional issues. From an institutional point of view, the focus is therefore on changes in the framework conditions of the tax and contribution system as well as the financing of welfare state services such as pensions and long-term care, while at the macroeconomic level, the effects of ageing on consumption, public budgets and GDP are examined in particular.