CULTURAGING – The Implications of Population Aging on Cultural and Socio-Economic Outcomes

Population aging is an ongoing societal transformation that has major economic implications for countries worldwide at all stages of development. Various facets of this phenomenon have been explored over the years with a particular focus on the role of population aging for economic growth, pension schemes, and social security in general. However, little research has been conducted on the social and the cultural implications of aging for societies. CULTURAGING aims at covering this gap by studying, both theoretically and empirically, the implications of aging on a series of cultural and socioeconomic outcomes. In particular, the researchers want to study the implications of aging on: i) the distribution of preferences in the population and the political support for different types of government spending; ii) immigration, voting, and political attitudes; and iii) on female labour force participation, gender inequality, and a change in attitudes towards women. The expected research output is quite rich and includes seven research papers, three newly collected datasets to be combined with several existing datasets that are freely available, two scientific workshops that will facilitate the exposure of our findings and the exposure of the University of Luxembourg with the participation of leading scholars in the respective fields, a press-conference that will present the scale and scope of their findings in a way that will be directed to the wider public and the authorities, and a dissemination platform for their project, output and data. The main objective of the research is thus threefold. First, to deliver a series of papers and associated datasets to be disseminated to the research community via participation in conferences, workshops, and via publications of the research output. Second, to provide an opportunity for involved young researchers to work with a highly active group of researchers, to come in contact with leading scholars in the field and to be familiarised with state-of-the-art research methods in an interdisciplinary field like the socio-economics of population aging. The third is to gain a new perspective on the important and largely ignored social implications of aging. This perspective has to cover clear messages to policy makers that help them propose reasonable social policies required in times of population aging.