Tackling the common challenges of ageing societies will be substantially improved by extending the coverage of the SHARE survey to all EU member states. The fact that European societies are continuously ageing, leads to a situation that has never existed before. In order to cope with these unprecedented circumstances, EU wide collaboration is essential. SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe is the largest pan-European social science panel study and able to advance this joint process: “We succeeded in integrating the last remaining uncovered EU countries in the survey. This is a great novelty that allows us to investigate ageing societies in all of the European Union”, Axel Börsch-Supan, Scientific Coordinator of the survey said.
The European Commission paved the way to include eight new countries in the survey, because SHARE is an important source of evidence which helps to better cope with challenges in the health, employment and social sector. Vytenis Andriukaitis, European Commissioner for Health & Food Safety emphasizes: “Europe is turning increasingly silver and it looks like this trend will continue in the decades to come. In order to tackle the challenges of ageing societies, it is important to learn from each other. Our aim is to strengthen country-specific and cross-country evidence to facilitate dialogue and policy action. The SHARE study makes an important contribution to this purpose.” Ruth Paserman, Deputy Head of the Cabinet of Marianne Thyssen, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs, Skills and Labour Mobility also explains the benefits of the extension: “It is a great success that many more countries now participate in SHARE. Researching the ageing societies in all EU member states is absolutely neccessary for mutual learning. SHARE will help us deliver reforms aimed at extending working lives and making social protection systems sustainable in our ageing societies.”