European Ageing in Focus

This Open Access book argues for a more prominent position on political and policy agendas for European population ageing.  In the coming two decades, ageing populations will put significant pressure on pension systems, budgets, and economies in the European Union. Increasingly close integration between EU member states through political ties, trade and a common currency, means ageing in one country will have a direct impact on other member states. The book sketches four potential risks with cross-border implications: economic stagnation within the EU, high national debts and divergence, upward pressure on inflation, and socio-political tension within and between member states. In the report European Aging in Focus. Dealing with Pension and Budgetary Risks, the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR) outlines three policy directions to anticipate and mitigate these risks: anticipate an ageing European Union and prepare society for it; steer at the EU level towards ageing-resilient socio-economic and pension policies; and protect at the national level against potential negative consequences of European ageing. While this book has a specific focus on the position of the Netherlands within an ageing Europe, it is of interest to policy makers and researchers across Europe interested in population ageing, associated pension and budgetary risks, and particularly in potential effects of these risks across national borders. 

Catrien Bijleveld is a senior researcher at The Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement and an emeritus professor of Research Methods in Empirical Legal Studies. Additionally, she is a professor of Global Justice at Liverpool University’s Faculty of Law within the Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology and a member of The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. Her main research interests are in the areas of criminal careers, experimental evaluation, intergenerational continuity in (sex) offending and crime victimization. She is the author of several textbooks as well as of edited books.

Roel Jennissen is a senior researcher at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). He obtained a PhD in demography from the University of Groningen based on the book Macro-Economic Determinants of International Migration in Europe (2004). Currently, his main research interests are crime, international migration and super-diversity.

Laura Vonk is a research associate at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). Her previous work includes studies and policy analysis on precarious employment. In 2024, she obtained her PhD in Sociology from the University of Amsterdam with a dissertation on aesthetic labor.

Casper de Vries is emeritus Witteveen professor of Monetary Economics at the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam. De Vries is a fellow of the Tinbergen Institute and serves as a member of the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR). He received his graduate training at Purdue University, after which he held positions at Texas A&M University and KU Leuven. He has been a visiting scholar at several European and American research institutes and central banks and has served as vice dean of research and education at the Erasmus School of Economics and as a crown member to the Dutch socio-economic Council (SER). De Vries’s research interests focus on international monetary issues, like foreign exchange rate determination and exchange rate risk, the Euro area, financial markets risk, risk management, systemic risk and statistical extreme value analysis.

Gijsbert Werner is a is a senior researcher at the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy. At the WRR, he has worked on advisory reports to the Dutch government on topics such as financial and social sustainability of health care, climate justice, pension risks, global demographic change and synthetic drug policy. Previously, he worked as an evolutionary biologist studying the evolution of cooperation at the University of Oxford and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.