To be effective, ageing-related policy should address inequalities across all ages

New study in the Observatory’s Economics of Ageing Series unveils that creating fair policies for people of all ages is more challenging than demographic change.

Investment in healthy ageing is about more than social and health care for people who are already old, a significant study led by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies suggests. Addressing inequalities early in life and across the entire life course, including those related to income, gender and race, has a major impact on health at older ages.

The study, published as ‘Ageing and Health: The Politics of Better Policies’ and also featuring in a webinar series, brings together evidence from research and country experiences and explores policy options that contribute to more sustainable care systems, avoid unnecessary costs and support older people.

“Inequalities across the life course not only contribute to inequalities in health, they also ultimately contribute to inequalities in terms of who has the opportunity to become old,” explains Jon Cylus, the health economist who led the series and coordinates the Observatory’s London hub. “When thinking about ageing populations, we should not simply think about older people. Instead, we should think about investments at all ages as being really essential if we want people to age in good health.”

The Observatory’s Economics of Healthy and Active Ageing Series began in 2016 in order to understand and challenge common myths associated with ageing populations being seen as an unavoidable problem for economies, societies and households. Researchers suggest that the evidence on how population ageing affects health systems, for example surrounding health financing and health workforce, is nuanced.

From myth busting to policy-making across countries

The first part of the webinar series, which took place in January and February 2022, challenged the common perception that an older population leads to a slower economy.

The study showed, for example, that the health of an older workforce matters more than the size of an older workforce itself. With a healthy older workforce, the economy will not necessarily slow down, even as the size of the older workforce grows.

The second webinar discussed that even if older people may cost more than younger people to provide health care for, the overall effects of population ageing on health spending growth are fairly small, and that higher spending at older ages is primarily driven by care at the end of life.

Policy-makers can focus their attention on making sure that care at the end of life provides value for money, improving the quality of life of patients and their families.

The final webinar of the series addressed common myths, such as the fact that ageing represents a burden on health systems. “It is actually a manageable challenge,” says Jon Cylus. “We should focus more on the political economy factors that drive policy decisions that affect older people as well as younger people.”