Building a Panel Survey on Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe

Ageing is one of the greatest social and economic challenges of the 21st century in Europe. SHARE, a EU-sponsored project that will build up a Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe, will be a fundamental resource for science and public policy to help mastering this unprecedented challenge. The main aim of SHARE is to create a pan-European interdisciplinary panel data set covering persons aged 50 and over. The project brings together many disciplines, including epidemiology, sociology, statistics, psychology, demography, and economics. Scientists from some 15 countries work on feasibility studies, experiments, and instrument development, culminating in a survey of about 22.000 individuals. The multidisciplinary nature of the data will provide new insights in the complex interactions between economic, health, psychological and social factors determining the quality of life of the elderly.