New think tank will rethink future senior life

The pension company PFA is behind a new think tank, which will challenge our conception of old age. Associations, organisations, the industry, experts and labour market parties all take part in the think tank.

More than half of the children born in these years can expect to live to be a hundred. When we live longer, the conditions of the third age change. The question is how our society should be set up in order to be able to keep up, and how we as people should spend the many extra years of our lives.

This will be the area of focus of the PFA think tank - The new 3rd age. The think tank, which is launched today, holds its first meeting in the beginning of February.

”There is an obvious need for rethinking old age.  As a society, we have set up old age to focus on discontinuation, but with the expected prolongation of life, and many hale and hearty senior citizens who have a zest for life, there is a need to view old age with fresh eyes. Therefore, PFA has established the PFA think tank - The new 3rd age,” says Allan Polack, Group CEO in PFA and vice-chairman of the think tank. The think tank will present concrete recommendations on how to improve the framework of the third age by 2040.

Significant changes

The chairman of the think tank is Claus Kjeldsen, CEO of Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, who is looking forward to begin the discussions.

”We are in a situation where the labour market and the types of dwelling will go through significant changes in the years until 2040 than what has been the case in the last 50 years. Therefore, we need a new toolbox to be able to manage this transformation,” says Claus Kjeldsen. He would like to challenge some of the basic assumptions in our existing society.

”What do we do when health becomes both global and personal, and at the same time offers benefits which are unlikely to be able to be financed in the existing society? How do we create the best framework that ensures that we can retire from the labour market gradually, so that social contact and professional competences are preserved for a longer period of time? What will be the demands from the most demanding generation of senior citizens to their residences, and how can it all be held together across new technological solutions?” Claus Kjeldsen asks.

The participants of the think tank, in addition to Claus Kjeldsen and Allan Polack, are labour market representatives Both Bente Sorgenfrey, President of FTF (the Confederation of Professionals in Denmark), and Jacob Holmbraad, CEO of Confederation of Danish Employers, join in on the discussions on future old age. Claus Kjeldsen is very pleased with this.

"We are broadly based, and therefore, I strongly believe that we can present qualified suggestions for how to solve some of the problems of the future,” says Claus Kjeldsen.

The think tank will be based on the future scenarios that we can see will affect people in Denmark and will present specific recommendations for how to rethink and improve the framework of the third age. In October, the think tank will present the recommendations at a large conference.

Further information about the PFA think tank - The new 3rd age:

Janne Bram Jensen, Vice President – Regulatory Affairs, T: (+45) 61 20 90 78, M: jje@pfa.dk
Martin Olsen, Media Consultant, T: (+45) 30 53 17 67, M: mol@pfa.dk