Project
The project titled "Are countries of the Visegrad Group (V4) ready for the consequences of population aging?" is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.
The grantee is University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Faculty of Economics.
Background
Population aging is an important demographic process that has come into prominence in present. The current age structure of the V4 population has regressing character. It’s the result of demographic behavior of recent decades (especially fewer births, rising life expectancy, migration, declining fertility rates, etc.). The proportion of people aged ≥65 years on population increased in every V4 countries: CZ (4,6 pp), PL (3,6 pp), SK (3,4 pp), HU (2,7 pp) between years 2008-2018. From the demographic viewpoint, these changes involve an increase in the number or proportion of the population in the highest age categories with appropriate social and economic consequences (e.g., funding of social and health care; healthy and active aging; pension costs and pension reforms; reproduction of labor force; increased government spending on health care and pensions, etc.). According to UN estimates, the population of the V4 countries will fall by only 4 % by the year 2040, but the decline in the working-age population between 15 and 64 will be 12 percent. This is more than the UN estimates for Western European countries. For changes linked to demographic aging, it is necessary to prepare properly not only at the state level but also in regions and regions of lower order. Depending on the projection of the number of seniors, it is, therefore, necessary to compare and evaluate the availability and structure of social services and to estimate the future costs of these services.
Aim of the Project
The aim of the project is to compare the readiness of the V4 countries to the consequences of population aging.
Implementation Period
01/06/2020–30/11/2021
