Resilience and the future of work

FutuRes has launched its Policy Lab. On Tuesday, 27 June 2023, we discussed with high level stakeholders from the EU-parliament, policy, research, business and international organisations. The topics were resilience and the future of work.

The workshop started with seven eminent experts from selected policy sectors giving insights on their work related to resilience and aging societies: Damian Boeselager (Member of European Parliament), Deša Srsen (Cabinet of the European Commission’s Vice-President), Anna Kwiatkiewicz (Senior Advisor, Business Europe), Philip Haywood (Policy Analyst and Senior Health Economist, OECD), Marina Manke (Chief of the Global Migration Data Analysis Centre, International Organization for Migration), Holly Shorey (Policy and Advocacy Officer, COFACE Families Europe)

The concept of “resilience”

There are core foundations of resilience beyond individual psychological aspects. Resilience relates to the ability of people to exercise their rights and agency, as well as the capability of individuals and institutions to swiftly adjust to new realities.

Families are an important and undervalued unit for resilience building. We need policies that complement the ability of families to combine both their risks and resources. Housing is also an important and related issue to resilience of individuals and families and this needs more attention.

FutuRes experts: Life-course approach: Arnstein Aassve (Professor in Demography, Bocconi University and Principle Investigator of the FutuRes Project), Fertility/childbearing: Agnieszka Chłoń-Domińczak (Director of the Institute of Statistics and Demography at WSE, Warsaw), Ageing: Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz (Professor of Mathematical Economics, TU Vienna), Migration: Jakub Bijak (Professor of Statistical Demography, University of Southampton)

The future of work and competitiveness

Could the quality of work be the key to improving the resilience of labour markets? If so, what are the factors that must be improved? What futures can be imagined? As the baby boomer generation retires, European pension systems are facing a crisis.

Countries such as Germany and France have responded by raising the age of retirement. This expectation to work until an older age has been met with frustration by many. The premise of this panel was, is “how long should we work?” the right question?

What if the question was “how can we work better, now?” In this online panel, five experts reflected on strategies: Beatrice Covassi (Member of the European Parliament); Jutta Allmendinger (President of the WZB Berlin Social Science Center); Massimiliano Mascherini (Head of the Social Policy Department at Eurofound); Ulrich Becker (Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy)

Find the event report here