Differences in Aging Across Cultures: A Global Perspective

Professor Vegard Skirbekk

December 1, 2016 · 12-1PM

Columbia University, Fayerweather Hall, Room 411

The Committee on Global Thought (CGT) Lunchtime Seminars are a forum for Columbia University faculty and visiting scholars to discuss current research characterizing and assessing issues of global importance. Open to Columbia affiliates only. No registration is required. Light lunch will be available.

About the speaker

Vegard Skirbekk is a professor at Columbia University and a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. His work is focused on understanding the links between aging and worker productivity, and is critical to countries with aging populations. Dr. Skirbekk’s research in this area, which examines the relationships of skills to work performance, demonstrates how population aging – at the macro level – is influenced by more than biological age processes. Countries with better educated populations, for example, tend to have older people with greater cognitive skill levels than countries whose populations are less well educated. Therefore, based on functional level, the U.S. and Northern Europe are effectively younger than India or China (both of which have chronologically younger age structures than Europe), stemming from factors such as differential investments in education and health.

Read more about the CGT Lunchtime Seminars.

 

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Fall 2016 Schedule

Below is the schedule for Fall 2016. The seminar takes place on Thursdays from 12-1pm in Fayerweather Hall, Room 411 unless otherwise noted. Please check back for updates to the schedule.

SEPTEMBER 22

Kian Tajbakhsh on "The Limits of Global Thought: Western Social and Human Sciences on Trial"

OCTOBER 6

Joseph R. Slaughter on "Hijacking Human Rights"

OCTOBER 27

Brian Larkin on "Generators, Electricity and the Infrastructural Life of Cities"

NOVEMBER 10

Saeed Naqvi on "Being the Other: The Muslim in India"

NOVEMBER 11 (FRI. IN 301M FAYERWEATHER)

Rosalind Morris on "Movement without Mobility, Settlement without Belonging: A Proposal for Theorizing 'Unsettlement' Today"

NOVEMBER 17

Henry Rousso on "The Latest Catastrophe: History, the Present, the Contemporary"

DECEMBER 1

Vegard Skirbekk on "Differences in Aging Across Cultures: A Global Perspective"

Directions

The seminar takes place on Thursdays from 12-1pm in Fayerweather Hall, Room 411 unless otherwise noted. Please check back for updates to the schedule.