Working Lives Research Institute
The CAWA project (Creative Approaches to Workforce Ageing) is co-financed by the European Union through a special measure called Article 6 under the budget heading "Innovative approaches to the management of change".
The overall objective of Article 6 is to support measures that promote new approaches and identify examples of good practice that can subsequently improve the implementation of mainstream operations supported bythe European Social Fund.
Article 6 supports innovative measures to assist the development of future policy and programmes through the piloting of projects, research and exchanges of information and experience in a transnational context. Specifically this project responds to the challenges of the ageing population, a demographic trend occurring across the European Union member states.
Demographic trends show that across the European Union there is an ageing workforce and a long-term decline of the working age population. These trends will constitute a significant challenge for member statesas they try to maintain economic growth and sustain social support systems in the medium to long term.
The European Commission’s 2002 report "Increasing labour force participation and promoting active ageing" estimated that to reach the targetof raising employment rates in the EU to 50% for older workers (55-64 age group) by 2010, employment in this age group would have to increase by 7.4 million.
This project aims to tackle this issue and develop pilot strategies for the promotion of active ageing.
The CAWA project aims to promote creative approaches to workforce ageing among older workers by getting the social partners to assess and develop benchmarks for innovative policies and practices and then by widely disseminating them.
In Austria, Spain, Sweden and UK it will organise forums focusing on case studies from two industrial sectors in two regions with older than average workforces. With additional input from Bulgaria, international meetings will then develop these national benchmarks into a European code of innovative practice. This will then be disseminated widely within the target sectors and regions, ensuring workforce ageing receives a higher priority.