The challenge of global population aging has been brought into sharper focus by the financial crisis of 2008. In particular, growing national debt has drawn government attention to two apparently conflicting priorities: the need to sustain public spending on pensions and health care versus the need to reduce budget deficits. A number of countries are consequently reconsidering their pension and health care provisions, which account for up to 40% of all government spending in advanced economies. Yet population aging is a global phenomenon that will continue to affect all regions of the world. By 2050 there will be the same number of old as young in the world, with 2 billion people aged 60 or over and another 2 billion under age 15, each group accounting for 21% of the world's population.

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The trends towards falling fertility and mortality and increasing longevity, which have led to the demographic ageing of all Western industrialized societies, have not occurred in isolation. More specifically, we are also seeing a combination of forces which are resulting in the ageing of some life-transitions. While public and legal institutions may be lowering the age threshold into full legal adulthood, individuals themselves are choosing to delay many of those transitions which demonstrate a commitment to full adulthood. This shift from a high-mortality/high-fertility society to a low-mortality/low-fertility society and the ageing of family transitions within these societies have significant implications for both family structure and kinship roles. Drawing on recent demographic figures for the European Union, this paper highlights the impact of these main trends on individuals and families.

The increasingly important role that grandparents and, in particular, grandmothers, are

The UK's national population structure, in line with most Western societies, is ageing rapidly. The combination of falling fertility and increasing longevity is having an impact on family structures and resultant relationships, with the emergence of long vertical multi-generational families replacing the former laterally extended family forms. This is occurring at a time when UK government policy is placing increasing reliance on families to provide health and social care and support for the growing number of frail older people. While there has been extensive research on family care within the majority white population, there is less understanding of the elder family care provision for the UK's growing older ethnic population. This paper discusses the changing demographics, new government policy on promoting independent living and its implications for family care provision, and reviews our current understanding of family care and support for older people within the UK’s varied ethnic minority families.

Background The gap between fertility outcomes and fertility ideals is notably higher in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) than elsewhere, relating to both under- and overachievement of fertility ideals. We consider the extent to which the relationship between fertility ideals and fertility outcomes is related to educational achievement. Further, we consider if these educational differentials are the same or different in SSA, and thereby consider the extent to which increasing levels of education in SSA may decrease fertility. Data and methods We use 227 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHSs) from 58 countries worldwide to look at population- level measures of the mismatch between fertility ideals and fertility outcomes. Population level measures are used to assess whether the correspondence between fertility intentions and achievements differ by level of education. We then look at the individual-level determinants of both under- and overachieving fertility intentions. Data from the most recent DHS in 54 of the original countries is used for the individual level analysis, with five countries excluded due to the most recent available survey being out of date. Results An average of 40% of women in SSA underachieve their stated fertility intentions compared to 26% in non-SSA countries. Furthermore, compared to other LMICs, higher levels of education are not related to better correspondence between fertility intentions and outcomes in SSA. In Middle/Western Africa countries, on average, 48% of women with secondary or higher education have fewer children than their ideal, compared to just 24% who have more children than their ideal. Conclusion We argue that the phenomenon of underachieving fertility ideals (or unrealized fertility) may be of particular importance for the ongoing fertility transition throughout SSA, especially as more highly educated groups do not appear to be following the patterns observed elsewhere.

Soon after an Australian organisation introduced a performance management system (PMS), the researchers asked employees to comment on their attitudes to the PMS. In addition, key stakeholders, managers and employees were interviewed to determine what they considered the impact of the PMS to have been.The results indicated that those workgroups that were already performing well benefited from the PMS, whereas those that were not had a more negative attitude to the PMS and were less positive about its impact on performance. The stakeholders and managers stated that the PMS had a more positive impact on performance than did the employees. Other successful outcomes as a result of the introduction of the PMS included: increased role clarity, standardisation of performance objectives, increased feedback on performance and the development of more accurate and relevant performance measures.The study also highlighted the difficulties encountered when evaluating PMS. Both the timing of the evaluation and the measures used need to be carefully considered when designing the evaluation.As organisations move into increasingly turbulent commercial environments, managers are finding survival of the business more difficult. They continually need to improve their performance, demonstrating consistently efficient and effective policies that result in good returns (or better) on shareholders' investment. One strategy that many organisations have adopted in the attempt to

The second half of the 20th century saw the more developed countries of the world experience population ageing to a degree hitherto unseen in demographic history. The first half of the 21 st Century is predicted to see the same transition within the less developed and transitional countries. Globally, by 2050 there will be some 2 billion adults aged over 60, and the total number of older people will outnumber the young. This is historically unprecedented. It makes the 20 th century the last century of youth, the 21 st century the first of population maturity.Most western style countries have aged continuously over the past century, the measure of ageing being an increase in the percentage of those over 60 years, and a decrease in those under 15 years. Europe reached maturity at the turn of the millennium, with more older people than younger. By 2030 half the population of Western Europe will be over 50, 25% over 65, and 15% over 75. By 2030 one quarter of the population of the developed world will be over 65, and by the middle of the century this will have risen to one third. Yet while most interest has focused on the ageing of Europe, it is the Asian/Pacific region that is ageing most rapidly. By 2030 one quarter of the population of Asia will be over 60, and by 2040 Asia will be demographically mature, with more older than younger people. If we move from structural ageing to consider absolute numbers of older people, the dominance of the less developed regions, and in particular Asia, becomes even more apparent. Already two thirds of the world's older population live in less developed regions with the absolute numbers of older people in these regions doubling to reach some 900 million within 25 years. By 2050 two-thirds of the world's elders will live in Asia alone.The numbers of those aged 80 and above will show an even greater increase, rising from 69 million to near 400 million by 2050. Thus by the middle of the 21st Century there will be almost as many over 80s as there were over 65s at the beginning. This is the fastest growing age group in the world with an annual growth rate of 3.8%. Low fertility around the time of the First World War and declining