IPRA webinar: The Multifaceted Effects of the Pandemic and the Lockdown Measures on EU Citizens

The multifaceted effects of the pandemic and the lockdown measures on EU citizens

Abstract: The webinar will present the first results from the SHARE-COVID19 project, which studies the non-intended consequences of the epidemic control decisions, among them the largest recession since WWII; the interruption of mobility, one of the basic rights of European citizens; and severe side effects on health since people avoid seeking medical treatment in fear of infection.

SHARE, the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, is a transdisciplinary and international survey to measure health, economic and social living conditions of the European population aged 50 or older. This population group has the highest risk of harm due to a COVID-19 infection. The SHARE base panel comprises about 480,000 interviews in all 27 EU member states, Switzerland and Israel, with observations every two years since 2004, and two additional surveys in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic.

Since the pandemic’s severity and the epidemic control decisions have been very different across EU Member States, the SHARE-COVID19 project aims to learn systematically how well healthcare and social systems have responded to the current pandemic and which lessons should be drawn for the future.

Professor Börsch-Supan is Director of the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging, Max Planck Institute for Law and Social Policy.

Professor Börsch-Supan studied economics and mathematics in Munich and Bonn and received a doctorate in economics from MIT (Cambridge, USA) in 1984. After working as an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University (1984-1987) and as professor of economic theory at the University of Dortmund (1987-1989) he was professor of macroeconomics and economic policy at the University of Mannheim (1989-2011). In his role as director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich, he is heading the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA) since 2011. Professor Börsch-Supan is a full member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He also coordinates the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE).

Professor Börsch-Supan is a member of the Council of Advisors to the German Economics Ministry (chair 2004-08), a member of the German federal governments’ Expert Group on Demography and has served as a consultant to the European Commission, the World Bank, the OECD and several foreign governments. From June 2018 until March 2020 he was member of the Pension Reform Commission of the German Government „Verlässlicher Generationenvertrag”. In May 2020 he was appointed to the French “Commission d’experts sur les grands défis économiques” by the French President Emmanuel Macron.