Keynote by Pearl Dykstra at the Futures Stakeholder Dialogue, March 11, 2025

Thank you for inviting me to speak at this Policy Lab event of the FutuRes project. One of the wonderful features of FutuRes is that Policy Lab events (with roughly the same group of people) have been held over the course of the project—and not just at the end—as a kind of add-on. 

The Policy Lab meetings offer the opportunity for deliberative engagement between scientific experts and policymakers. Deliberative engagement (what are the policy issues, what can research offer, what is known, what is unknown, what cannot be answered) contributes to the efficacy of scientific advice. 

This morning I would like to address the question of how demographic insights can strengthen policy making in a meaningful way.

One of the strengths of demography is its consideration of levels of analysis. There is the individual level of people’s lives: having a child, moving residential location, leaving the labour force, reaching a particular age. The occurrence of such transitions, their timing, and their consequences are shaped by higher-level circumstances: household, family, community, region, nation, and supranational forces (such as the European Union). These higher-level circumstances provide entry points for policy making. 

But the reverse also happens: shifts in individual-level behaviours lead to the formation of new social norms, or of new social institutions. The new developments serve as forward looking signals for policy makers.

Beyond the usual "withstand and rebound"

Another strength of demography is its multidisciplinarity. Analyses of demographic change require insights from history, psychology, medicine, anthropology, sociology, economics, politics, and so forth. The connections across the various domains exemplify that there is no quick fix to population challenges.

Yet another strength of demography lies in its empirical methods.

Demography provides key metrics and projections of longevity, fertility and population density, which can serve as indicators of broader social issues.

Resilience, the theoretical framework used in FutuRes addresses the interaction between the micro level of individual lives and the macro level of social forces. FutuRes has elaborated resilience in a way that is particularly helpful for research, intervention, and prevention. 

In their Policy Insights brief, Arnstein Aassve and Andreas Edel provide the following definition: “A resilient society is one which can identify risks in order to manage crises effectively - ideally before they occur”.

This is an crucial conceptual leap from the typical “withstand and rebound” approach to resilience. First, there is a focus on drivers of change, acknowledging intersections of influence (gender, education, migration background, family, age) at varying analytical levels. Second, the approach is forward looking, including crisis preparation. Third, there is space for “learning”—not a return to a pre-crisis situation, but a route towards transformation.

Obstacles and opportunities

In my view, FutuRes has done an amazing job of identifying risks (such as ageism, pension gaps, and poor community cohesion) and suggesting mitigation measures.
Interestingly, the suggested measures are not only about legislative actions that the European Union might take, but also about supporting best practices developed by citizens themselves.

Over the past 2 years, the policy experts who have participated in FutuRes Policy Lab meetings have demonstrated the will and competence to build resilience in Europe to face demographic change. Yet these experts worry that their ideas, plans and initiatives are hindered by two trends. 
One is a political stalemate, as more and more European countries are struggling with stable government formation. 

The other is the current possibility of a security and economic recession, which has brought the spirit of austerity back to Europe.
Meanwhile, the EU-Vice-Presidency for Demography no longer exists and the New European Commission has diffused population topics into no less than 10 portfolios.  (For those who are interested, FutuRes and Population Europe have created a brief on how population policy has been spread across Commissioners’ portfolios.)

The upshot is unclear. Perhaps population policy is becoming more mainstream and prominent.
Or, population policy will be treated as no more than an appendix. 

FutuRes believes that demographic change needs a constant science4policy discussion and for this a sustainable structure. 
(Fortunately Population Europe is still going strong.) Today’s Policy Lab meeting is the last time FutuRes researchers will be able to speak with stakeholders in an online setting before the end of the project. 

They have two questions for the participants. First, what is your advice on how to make research findings generate impact in adversary conditions? Second, what strategies do you suggest for keeping the resilience and demographic change agenda alive? 
For this, selected research leaders will present some of their preliminary findings as they pertain to policymaking. 
Let me end by saying that I look forward to the meeting!

Pearl Dykstra is a Member of the Advisory Board of FutuRes. She is Professor Emerita of Empirical Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Formerly, she served as Deputy Chair of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the Cabinet of European Commissioners.