Page 10 - Tallinna Ülikool

10
A key aim of SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, is to support social, economic and health policies with an evidence base that helps to meet these challenges. e central concept of SHARE is to provide a broad set of users, ran- ging from scientists to policy makers, with data to answer key fundamental and policy questions about individual and population ageing such as:
– Which causal pathways create the link between health and socio-economic status? How important are they? Can they be in uenced by welfare state policy? If so, how and when optimally during the life course?
– What are the e ects of a shi of retirement age in the wake of population aging? How much labour supply can and will be added? For which type of individual with her/his work history will the side e ects on health, cognition and social inclusion be positive or negative?
– How will intergenerational relationships change as Europe’s diverse populations are ageing? What is the interplay between family help and state support when long-term care needs will increase? How will bequests and inter vivos transfers react to cuts in pension bene ts? How do these developments di er between the Nordic, Western, Central, Eastern and mediterranean countries?
In order to address these challenges with scienti c support, SHARE has built up an infrastructure of micro data that combines information on health with the economic and social living conditions of individuals as they age and as they are exposed to the societal changes precipitated by the population ageing process.
understanding ageing and how it is a ected by public policy implies a design that com- bines three essential features which make SHARE a truly unique and innovative infrast- ructure in the world:
– First, SHARE is ex-ante harmonised across countries which allows comparing the e ects of the di erent health and welfare systems in all Eu countries on individuals and families. is characterizes SHARE as compared to one-country data sets
such as national registers, but also as compared to Eurostat’s approach of ex post harmonisation in, e.g., Eu-SILC.
– Second, SHARE is transdisciplinary and lls an important research vacuum, namely the numerous interactions between bio-medical and socio-economic factors. It supports empirical research for demography, economics, epidemiology, gerontology, psychology, public health, and sociology. SHARE thus stretches beyond, e.g., the many medical studies on ageing or the labour force surveys where we know either the health of the respondents or their work history, but not both.