[Futuregen] Notes from webinar OECD today

[Ricardo Rodrigues]

Dear colleagues,


I have just had our FutureGEN webinar with the OECD and here is a short 
summary of the reactions/comments with a focus on those that could have 
a direct implication for the articles/research:


Cohort study:

i) most of the debate was on policy implications of our findings.

How homogeneous are the clusters: i.e. are the N and W Europe 
trajectories similar for all countries included in that cluster? Not 
sure we can answer that entirely with our sample sizes though.

The positive evolution observed for women in E Europe could give some 
hope that this improvement will partially offset the rising number of 
dependent older people, so that demand for care in the future will 
actually be smaller than expected.

Could we replicate this evolution in S Europe? In other words, what lies 
behind the effect we observe for women in E Europe and what does it tell 
us for other regions. It could also be that the effect we observe in E 
Europe is very time-space specific (e.g. Communism, gains in education 
for a particular cohort(s) of women with a very low initial access to 
education, etc).

Very much looking forward to the similar analysis on caregiving and care 
receiving.

ii) Widowhood study

What are the policy implications from these findings? Maybe older women 
are caring themselves and don't have access to care while carers while 
men do and thus the larger widowhood effect - different targeting of 
services would be needed.

Why don't we see a widowhood effect in N Europe? Is it a question of 
better/more services available or different targeting?

Could we disaggregate the living arrangement effect more? Are people 
moving in with their grandchildren (and looking after them) or with same 
generation households? The roles people take/have in these new living 
arrangements (e.g. as grandparents) may impact the services they receive 
(or whether they need services at all - grandparenting may allow/force 
them to cope for example or improve resilience).


Overall, great interest on the project and also on the Data Navigator 
(Eileen gave some words on it). Well done to us all, especially to the 
main authors of the two studies above!


Looking forward to seeing you all next Tue 29.9 at 13h30 CET. Tentative 
genda will follow soon.

Best wishes,

Ricardo