The Living Conditions of Older People in the EC

Abstract

This paper concerns the living standards of older people in the twelve member states of the EC. It draws on two principal sources of information recently published by the EC: the 1993 report of the EC’s Observatory on Ageing and Older People and the initial results of the two Eurobarometer surveys on attitudes to ageing and older people carried out for the European Year. The Observatory is a network of EC experts established to monitor the impact of social and economic policies on older people. Each expert prepares a national report and these results are synthesised into an overview covering the whole EC. The Observatory was set up in 1991 and therefore it has only just commenced its task. The Eurobarometer is a public opinion survey conducted simultaneously in each member state and, in 1992, we carried out a special survey of older people as well as a general population survey. (Both surveys included separate samples from the former FDR and GDR.) I thought it would be of interest to combine some of the results of this work and look at the perceptions of the general public and of older people as well as the objective date generated by the Observatory.

Paper given to Germany Society for Demography, Bad Homburg, 26 February, 1993