International workshops on June 12/13 in Görlitz

A quarter of a century after the social upheaval of 1989/1990, the post-socialist transformation process in the countries of Eastern/Central Europe is still not complete - but this region is already facing the next social challenge of an ageing population. In contrast to Western European societies, Eastern Europe has little more than a generation to face up to the radically changing social conditions of a rapidly ageing society as a result of demographic change. While Germany and Italy are currently the most ageing societies in Europe, with more than 20% of their population aged 65 and over, Eastern Europe will overtake them in this respect in the second half of the 21st century: by 2060, 36% of the Latvian, 35% of the Romanian and more than 34% of the Polish population will be aged 65 and over, compared to just under a third in Germany (Eurostat, 2011).

The conditions for a successful adjustment process in Eastern Europe are extremely unfavorable: while Western Europe became prosperous and was able to develop comprehensive social policy systems before it grew old, Eastern Europe will grow old before it has had the opportunity to become prosperous and develop adequate social policy systems. In addition, there are now two decades of low birth rates and massive emigration of the younger generation. This particularly affects rural areas in Eastern and Central Eastern Europe, where entire regions are becoming increasingly depopulated.

"The depopulation of rural areas in Eastern/Central Europe: causes, consequences and possible solutions" is the topic of an international workshop to be held at the Faculty of Social Sciences on 12/13 June 2015, jointly organized by the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, University of Oxford, and the Social Gerontology Research and Teaching Unit. This long-standing collaboration is based on the EAST research network - "Eastern-European Ageing Societiesin Transition" -

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- which was founded ten years ago by Prof. Dr. Hoff in Oxford and has been continued since 2011 by Dr. George Leeson, Co-Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. Leading scientists from renowned universities and research institutions from Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Great Britain and the former East and West Germany will give lectures on this topic. The conference language is English.

For further details, please see the attached program. You are cordially invited to participate in this conference. In order to be able to calculate the number of participants, especially for the catering, please register with Katja Knauthe k.knauthe(at)hszg.de by June 8.

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Contact:

Prof. Dr. Andreas Hoff

Professor of Social Gerontology

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Phone: 03581/4828186

E-mail: a.hoff(at)hszg.de