Population aging means a growing number of older persons relative to younger persons. For workers, this can mean a growing demand for the goods and services they produce. For older persons, however, it means greater competition for goods and services. This may impede access to needed services that are relatively labor intensive, such as health care and long-term care. To confront this challenge, public policies must encourage the market to invest in labor-saving technologies that will make workers more productive in all that workers do, and also reduce the dependency of older persons on younger persons for critical services. This talk will examine the inter-connections of population change, markets, and public policies with an eye towards meeting the challenges presented by an aging society.

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