Now with rising longevity, the within family care could extend to 20 or even 30 years, and with delayed marriage, perhaps throughout the son or daughter’s full working life. This is difficult to sustain. Thus, the problems of ageing are upon us in developing countries as well, and certainly in Asia.
The decisive measures taken by fiscal policy makers at national and European level as well as the ECB’s monetary policy will help to mitigate a looming economic divergence between individual European countries. It will be essential to find a common European response to these shared challenges, and to implement it on the basis of the ground-breaking decisions taken at the EU summit in July.