24 October 2017. As an independent social organisation, Pro Senectute has supported elderly people for 100 years: people should be able to determine their lives themselves in old age, free from material and immaterial needs. The demographic perspectives alone indicate that Pro Senectute's activities will continue to be in demand in the coming years. At present, one in three inhabitants of this country is over 65 years old; in mid-century, the ratio is likely to be every second inhabitant, with the proportion of the very old increasing particularly strongly.

First lecture evening in three parts

On the first evening, on 31 October, the President of Pro Senectute Switzerland, former Federal Councillor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, will outline the social and economic importance of Pro Senectute. Subsequently Boris Tschirky, Mayor of Gaiserwald and Chairman of the Association of St.Gallen Mayors, will portray the future of an ageing society from the perspective of the municipalities. Then Widmer-Schlumpf and Tschirky will discuss important questions concerning the future of an ageing society in a panel discussion. Beata Studer (President of Pro Senectute, Canton St.Gallen) and Albert Baumgartner (social worker, Pro Senectute) will round off the panel.

Challenges and opportunities from three different perspectives

How safe are our pensions? The development of material old-age provision will be illustrated by Walter Ackermann, Retired Professor of Social Policy, on 7 November. Care for the elderly will also be affected by the current wave of digitisation. The developments, opportunities and risks connected with this will be sketched by Hubert Österle, Retired Professor of Business IT, on 14 November. The lecture series will be rounded off on 21 November by reflections by Verena Kast, Retired Professor of Psychology at the University of Zurich, on the individual opportunities and options of ageing.

Picture: Fotolia/Robert Kneschke