| Abstract: The author presents the results of his demographic research work, which is
characterised by unorthodox methodology and whose goal is "to describe the individual
experience of aging and the changes in their economic and social environment experienced
by each generation during the process of aging." The research involves long-term
observations and analytic projections up to the year 2020, based on a group of women who
were between 40 and 44 in 1982. According to the results available so far, "75% of
these women will die as widows, 26% of them will experience the death of one of their
children, and nearly 12% of them will die childless and without a partner." In
contrast to widows living today, the generation scrutinised here will have been active in
the work world to a much greater degree and will have increasingly accumulated their own
pension rights. Thanks to the latter, plus surviving dependants' pensions, they will
probably enjoy a higher income than today's single women. However, by 2020 changes in the
laws must be reckoned with, as a result of the unfavourable ratio of workers paying social
security contributions to pensioners, and these changes will have a negative effect on the
living standards of pensioners in general. |
