The Silver economy: challenges and opportunities

Abstract

Population dynamics is one of the most important global challenges, along with the environmental one. In recent decades, the world population has grown rapidly, people live longer, and inequality between age groups has expanded. With increasing life expectancy and declining birth and fertility rates, societies are facing a growing proportion of older people. This phenomenon has major implications for both the economy and public policy.

From a public expenditure perspective, ageing implies a significant increase in resources for social security and health care: spending on pensions and health care already represents a significant proportion of GDP. At the same time, consumption expenditure of the elderly is becoming an increasingly important component of the economy, with growing expenditure on private health care, nursing homes, home services and digital health technologies. Finally, the role of the elderly as a social shock absorber is confirmed, as households with at least one elderly member have a lower incidence of absolute poverty than those without elderly people.