Ageing Studio (2010)
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10 IDEAS (in no particular order)
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The Challenge
Rethinking welfare for an ageing society
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The Studio set out to articulate a new understanding of the ageing population based on 3 core tenets: new wealth & new health, the revised social contract, and systemic & institutional innovation.
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An animated summary of the Ageing Studio's intensive week.
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1. Gray Gold
The elderly have massive investment and purchasing power. How can this be activated to create new markets for products and services? How can the wisdom and capital of the silver wave be folded back into the economy through investments and mentorship?
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2. No formal retirement age
Full-stop retirement is a concept designed for industrial society conceptions of labour and leisure. Why stop all at once? What about stepping down from working life at your own pace?
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3. Develop a New Social Charter
Could Finland be the first nation ever to use a national co-creation event to develop a new social contract?
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4. Co-Creation to drive new services
What if all new public services in Finland we required to be co-created?
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5. Ministers of Ageing and Volunteerism
Building on the model suggested by Israel, could Finland have an interdepartmental Minister of Ageing?
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7. From Welfare to Co-Care
Finland can be an institutional society. How to enable a transition from the passive receiving of care to an active pursuit of wellbeing?
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10. Forty year Trust Fund to replace Pension
Could a Trust create a deeper sense of personal agency and empower individuals to take control of their life stage transitions?
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8. Emphasize lifelong exercise and prevention
An active lifestyle from a young age is key. Finland has a record of success with preventative health, how can this be leveraged?
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9. Honour Volunteering
Could volunteerism flourish if there were more social rewards for participating?
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6. National Wisdom Bank
Use the Wisdom Bank to enable generational knowledge/skill transfer. What would a government supported Time Bank look like?
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"Building a deep value economy - force ALL pension investments to be stress tested over the total likely investment period 40yrs."
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Opportunity Space
The opportunity to restructure the welfare system will generate new benefits for Finnish society as well as constitute valuable strategies that can be used by other nations with similar ageing populations.
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Studio portrait after the final presentation. Review guests (on couch from left to right): Timo Vierelä, Planner, City of Helsinki Social Services Department, Services for the Elderly; Pekka Timonen, Cultural Director, City of Helsinki; Paula Kokkonen, Deputy Mayor, City of Helsinki; Juha Kostiainen, Director of Public Administration Management Development Programme, Sitra; Tapio Anttila,Vice President, Sitra.
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Where to live?
Perhaps the most fundamental decision affecting the elderly
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Social And Service Networks for care
Who provides the care and services for their well-being?
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Life expectancy at birth and total fertility rate
Source: OECD Health Data (2001) and Statistics Finland
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The Welfare Landscape of Finland
Source: HDL
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1.28 Million
65+ year olds in Finland by 2020
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The Cost Of “Old Age”
“Old Age” currently accounts for approximately 30% of total social welfare expenditure.
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25%
Portion of GDP Finland spends on social welfare (€ 43.4 billion) SOURCE
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Preparing For The Silver Wave
The three descriptive models as conceptual starting points
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Case Study: The Kainuu Regional Experiment
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Innovating Better Ways of Living in Later Life
A report from the Young Foundation by Carmel O’Sullivan, Geoff Mulgan and Diogo Vasconcelos. 39 pages. 500kb.
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"Curiously, hospice care seemed to extend survival for some patients; those with pancreatic cancer gained an average of three weeks, those with lung cancer gained six weeks, and those with congestive heart failure gained three months. The lesson seems almost Zen: you live longer only when you stop trying to live longer. When Cox was transferred to hospice care, her doctors thought that she wouldn’t live much longer than a few weeks. With the supportive hospice therapy she received, she had already lived for a year. "
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The network of actors related to ageing in the city of Helsinki.
Source: HDL
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"Older workers, who typically fared better than their younger counterparts in recessions, have been hit just as hard by layoffs this time around. As a result, the fraction of people 65 or older who are working has leveled off after a long period of growth."
Wall Street Journal on the employment prospects for 65+ in the US
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For more...
...About this studio and how to create your own similar workshop, please see the relevant chapters in our book In Studio!
