International Conference. Ageing under lowest-low fertility and high emigration. The demography, the politics and the socio-economic challenges
Warsaw, June 5-7th 2017
Call for Papers
deadline for abstract submissions: Monday, February 13. 2017
The Conference is organized by the Centre of Migration Research and will be hosted by the University of Warsaw. It aims at discussing major challenges faced by rapidly ageing societies and, in particular, presenting main outcomes of Mig/Ageing project (entitled Unfinished migration transition and ageing population in Poland. Asynchronous population changes and the transformation of formal and informal care institutions), financed between 2013 and 2017 by the Poland’s National Science Centre (http://migageing.uw.edu.pl/).
Conference description
Poland is about to rapidly transform from one of the youngest to one of the oldest societies in Europe. Specific course and intensity of population ageing the country has experienced results from the different timing of the demographic and migration transitions in comparison with Western countries. Extremely low fertility rates and high population outflow create an unique set of demographic factors that shape economic reality, public policies, care institutions and family relations.
The central themes of the conference will be introduced by keynote speakers, representing various academic perspectives: Prof. Axel Börsch-Supan (Max-Planck-Institute for Social Law and Social Policy), Prof. Sandra Torres (Uppsala University), and Prof. Anatoly G. Vishnevsky (National Research University, Moscow). The keynote lectures will be followed by a series of specific sessions which will offer an opportunity for the whole community of scholars working in the field to share and discuss their research outcomes.
Session theme 1: Challenges of ageing viewed from macro-structural and market mechanisms perspectives – now and in the future
Population ageing is an on-going and irreversible process which has various economic implications. The current situation and future development of pension systems is a direct and one of the most important fields of concern in this context. We would like to extend this perspective by considering the impact of the demographic change on labour market outcomes, health care systems performance (in particular, LTC services), public expenditures, financial markets and interest rates, consumption, productivity and economic growth. We encourage participants to adopt a long-term perspective and macro-structural approach where possible. It would also be beneficial to feed our discussion with research on the impact of current and expected migration flows in this context.
Session theme 2: Public policies in view of rapid ageing and other contemporary demographic challenges
People are living longer than ever before, birth rates are declining and young people are emigrating, all these processes lead to a radically altered age structure across many countries, including Poland. Though the regions and local communities are experiencing the impacts of an ageing society in different ways and at varied paces, the trend seems to be a universal one. The aging of populations brings a set of important
challenges for decision makers and administration at every level (national, regional and local) and requires changes in the government policy and community support for the aged. During the session we would like to discuss questions related to various implications of ageing population for state policy, especially in the area of health care, social services, education and media, but also for political and electoral system (“silver democracy”) as well as political and public discourse.
Session theme 3: Elderly care institutions and family relations in times of advanced ageing and high territorial mobility of people
In countries of informal family care regime, such as Poland, the role of family carers is crucial and the changes of the family relations, i.a. in the context of international migrations will contribute greatly to the transformations of the care landscape. The role of non-familial care actors will be most probably only rising. Thus, we may envisage a ‘care transition’ of various degree awaiting countries of a predominantly family care regimes, undergoing accelerated ageing and concomitant out-migration processes. We welcome papers analysing care institutions within the context of family relations both in the Central Eastern European countries, as well as countries of defamilised care regimes that can contribute to understanding the possible directions and variants of the ‘care transition’.
Interested researchers are invited to submit abstract (up to 300 words) by e-mail (conference.migration@uw.edu.pl). Each abstract should include the title, theme of the session, and contact details to the author(s).
Abstract submission deadline: February 13th, 2017
Acceptance notification: March 13th, 2017
Paper submission deadline: May 7th, 2017
Participants with accepted papers will attend the conference free of charge.
Schedule
The plenary and thematic sessions will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 6th-7th 2017.
The conference will be preceded by a press conference and a methodological workshop in the afternoon on June 5th.
Workshop: Researching elderly care in transnational families – main challenges and possible solutions
The workshop aims at exchanging the experience of researchers using qualitative methods to study care for the elder adults and introducing other researchers interested in the field. The aim of the workshop will be to discuss and propose solutions to challenges offered by the research on elderly care in transnational families, such as interviewing people in sickness and frailty or gaining confidence when working with different generations in the same family. Workshop organizers will be happy to hear and discuss attendees’ research experience and research methods applied.
Venue
The conference will be held at the University of Warsaw Library. Details as well as links to the maps and directions will soon be available on the conference website: http://migageing.uw.edu.pl/category/conf/.
Contact
The leader of the Mig/Ageing project is
Professor Marek Okólski; email: moko@uw.edu.pl
Conference co-ordinator:
Dr. Marta Anacka; email: m.anacka@uw.edu.pl
Conference secretary:
Mr. Kamil Matuszczyk; email: conference.migration@uw.edu.pl