The Max Planck Institute launches PERFAR, a new policy, research and data repository

PERFAR logoLast January 26 the Max Planck Institute officially launched a new online repository, PERFAR. This new platform contains a very rich collection of policies, data and research in the fields of demography and social affairs. Elaborated and sustained mainly by Population Europe, a Berlin-based network of demographic research institutes around Europe, it contains legislation, public policies, statistical data as well as research materials accessible by geographic, chronologic and thematic criteria.

This repository is intended to help researchers, policymakers but also civil society to have quick and easy access to those previously dispersed materials. Legislation and policies interestingly include comments by researchers (national contact points of Population Europe’s network) that contextualise and assess their impact.

The launch event took place in Brussels, in the office of Max Planck Institute and Population Europe. It was well-attended by NGOs – including AGE Platform Europe –, researchers and policymakers. It included an interesting presentation by Axel Börsch-Supan, director of the Munich Center for the Economics of Ageing, who focused on the challenge of demographic change, and refuted received wisdom on intergenerational conflict or early retirement, by demonstrating how countries spending more on policies towards older people are also those with the most generous youth policies. Mr Börsch-Supan also showed how life satisfaction of older people declines after retirement, therefore inviting to further explore good ways to create age-friendly work places that encourage and help older people remain longer in the labour market.

PERFAR, built on the basis of former Population Policy Database, has been partly developed with the support of Families and Societies, a European project investigating the diversity of family forms and demographic change in Europe. As dissemination partner within this project, AGE is currently working on gathering repositories of good practices from NGOs in order to feed PERFAR with civil society’s views and experience.

You can visit the database and explore its potential in www.perfar.eu

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