As early as the 1980s, individual authors or international bodies singled out ageing as one of the biggest economic challenges of the future. The first task at hand for economic researchers was obviously to estimate the size of the problem: what is it that we are facing? How bad will it be?
Most studies initially focused on the pensions problem and the budgetary impact of ageing. Two remarks in that respect. –  Subsequent studies revealed that, contrary to what is still often thought, pension expenditure is not the only budgetary item that will soar because of population ageing.