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Working and ageing
44 Guidance and counselling for mature learners

choices, careers and life cycles, immigration, see for example, Bovenberg,
2008; Schmid, 2002). These developments apply to all EU Member States.
Demographic development in Europe is also of special interest in our context.
We will first give an overview of the main demographic changes. Then we will
have a look at the changing world of work in enterprises and the
consequences for future employment of older employees.

3.2. Demographic trends and shortage of
skilled employees

The EU demographic situation is characterised by diversity. Differences exist
in the fertility rate, life expectancy, net migration and labour participation rates.
The European statistical office (Eurostat) regularly delivers projections for
development of the population and potential labour force by age (Eurostat,
2010). Such projections provide important data on future labour-market
developments and can support evaluation of passive and active labour-market
policies. The latest projections ( ) cover the period 2008-61. Population
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projections involve making internationally comparable population estimates
and producing the most plausible figures for future years. In general, key
assumptions are made with respect to mortality, fertility and migration by
gender and age. In discussing population trends, two aspects are important:
(a) population trends are relatively autonomous and are exogenous
influences upon a countryʼs social system and labour market;
(b) population trends are gradual and long lasting. Changes in the central
components of population development – birth rate, life expectancy of the
population, and even migration – influence the structure of the population
for many decades.
The data show that, especially the German, population and also the potential
working population (persons in the age group 20-64 years) will decline
dramatically between 2008 and 2030. Figure 3.1 shows the indexed trend of
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the share of the potential working population ( ) in the age group 55-64 years
to the total potential working population for Germany and for the average of
EU-27. This figure reveals the demographic situation most European countries
will face in the next decades.

( ) Results are available at the Eurostat database (Europop2008): http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/
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portal/page/portal/population/data/database [16.6.2011].
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( ) The concept of the potential labour force includes employed persons and the registered unemployed
as well as ʻhiddenʼ unemployment.