Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to introduce the key themes in the area of the impact of demographic change on young workers and older workers in relation to education, skills and employment, as discussed in the papers included in this section. The authors have also drawn upon data from their project "From Young Workers to Older…

International employment policy must change in order to provide people with work suited to their abilities at every life stage. If technology fails to create sufficient jobs, available work should be redistributed to ensure that large numbers of people do not remain inactive at the community's expense. (Author/CH)

The population of the United States is aging and will age even more rapidly in the coming years. Yet our public and private retirement and benefits policies continue to favor early retirement--in spite of clear demographic trends, in spite of legislation raising the mandatory retirement age from 65 to 70, in spite of the fact that many of our…