Barriers and opportunities for European active ageing policies: results of an expert panel discussion (WP6) ; German report

Abstract

"The intent of Work Package 6 of the ActivAge project, 'Barriers and Opportunities for European Active Ageing Policies', was to collect opinions from experts on the preliminary results of our project and to gather useful tools for fostering active ageing policies which could serve as recommendations for policy-makers. This purpose was followed by the means of an expert panel discussion conducted in each of the countries participating in the project. The following report will deal with the results of the expert panel meeting carried out on May 27th, 2005 at the premises of the Centre for Social Policy Research (ZeS) in Bremen. In chapter two, the preparation of the meeting, the ways of recruitment of the experts and the schedule of the meeting is presented. Chapter 3 deals with the understanding of 'active ageing' by the experts. It will become clear that besides aspects clearly connected to the field of pensions, employment, health care and volunteering, some issues like 'participation in social life' and 'mental flexibility' have a more universal meaning and were regarded as important by most of the panel participants. From chapter 4, the reader will learn about the strengths and weaknesses of Germany with regard to the realisation of active ageing objectives, and about the opportunities and risks stemming from the EU which may improve or aggravate the situation in Germany. Chapter 5 is devoted to the results of the moderated discussion in the afternoon. The discussion was divided into thematic areas - pension system, labour market, health care and selforganised voluntary activities of older people (SOVA). In this chapter, policy recommendations developed by experts are presented. Chapter 6 is the concluding chapter. It sums up the positive and negative aspects of the discussion and recapitulates the main results." (author's abstract)