Future of an Ageing Population

Future of an Ageing Population | Key Findings
address health, work and care challenges, and help people unlock
the potential benefits of living longer. Barriers include a lack of skills and
access, cost, and older people’s assumptions about technology’s usefulness
and affordability.
A coherent response to ageing
The ageing population presents real opportunities. However, there are
challenges, and ignoring these could undermine the potential benefits of living
longer. This report combines evidence about today’s older people with future
trends and projections to identify the most critical implications of the ageing
population for government policy and the socio-economic resilience of the UK.
The following principles will help to ensure a coherent response to ageing:
• The future success and resilience of the UK will be determined in a large part
by its ageing population. Nowhere is this more apparent than the productivity
of the UK workforce, which will see a major increase in the number of
workers aged 50 and above. The effect of an ageing population on health and
care services will likewise have a major impact on the UK.
• Issues cannot be addressed in silos. For example, the productivity of the
ageing population will be influenced by the skills and health of older workers,
competing family care responsibilities, and connectivity. A co-ordinated
response is likely to be more successful than addressing issues in isolation.
• Most domestic policy areas will be affected by the ageing population.
Beyond the expected, such as health and care, this report illustrates that a
wide-range of policy areas will be affected, including housing, transport,
infrastructure and technology.
• Factors throughout an individual’s lifetime affect how they age. To improve
outcomes for people as they age – whether in skills, health, employability,
housing and assets to fund retirement – requires interventions from an early
age, and an understanding of the impact of policies through the life course.
• Regional variation must be understood. Connectivity challenges will differ
between urban and rural areas, while different home ownership levels around
the country will create regional differences in older people’s financial assets
and the support they need. There are also important differences between
how the devolved administrations will experience ageing. This project has
produced an online tool to map the different characteristics of ageing across
the UK (see Box B).
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