Market barriers to ICT for independent living and active ageing - Preliminary Findings
An ICT & Ageing study, launched by the European Commission in the beginning of 2008, has issued its preliminary findings. The main goal of the study is to identify and understand the market barriers which currently hinder uptake of ICT for independent living and active ageing in Europe. For the first time, the study looks into the situation prevailing in 14 representative EU Member States as well as the USA and Japan with regard to the deployment situation of relevant ICTs and policy/market response respectively. It will identify and analyse good practice and show how Europe can learn from the experience in individual countries. This research endeavour will continue until the end of 2009.
The document presents preliminary outcomes of an ongoing study entitled "ICT & Ageing - Users, Markets and Technologies". This two year research endeavour was launched in the beginning of 2008 by the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media. The general background to this study derives from the trend towards accelerating population ageing as it has been observed across Europe and beyond for some time already.
In Europe, average life expectancy has increased from 55 years in 1920 to over 80 years today. With the retiring baby boom generation the number of people aged between 65 and 80 years is expected to rise by nearly 40% between 2010 and 2030.2 For Europe and many other countries around the world, the ongoing demographic development has significant socio-economic implications: in the future, there will be more older people in absolute as well as relative terms, there will be considerably more old people particularly in the upper age range, there will be fewer family carers providing informal support to these, and there will be a smaller productive workforce to contribute to the creation of economic wealth in general and to the financing of health and social services in particular.
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Download of the document:
ictageing_vienna_handout_final2.pdf
