Aging, Intergenerational Solidarity and the Polycrisis
Approaches to understanding individual and population ageing, along with their implications within diverse contexts, are both enduring and far-reaching. These contexts, conditions, and dynamics differ among societies and evolve over time, often shifting from reforms to crises. Understanding these dynamics and its impacts present a significant and vital challenge to address and overcome. The concept of ‘polycrisis’ has emerged as a response and refers to a situation where multiple crises intersect, interact, and amplify each other, forming a complex web of challenges that are more difficult to address than any single crisis alone. This concept has its roots in both academic and policy discussions and has been used to describe the convergence of economic, social, cultural, political, demographic, and environmental crises. Today’s crises are deeply interconnected, with each crisis both impacting and being impacted by others. Thus, the polycrisis is characterized by interconnectedness, mutual amplification, complexity, and an inherent time dimension of the interdependencies, causes and consequences.
Given its potential longevity, differential affectedness, and connections across the life course, polycrisis is inherently tied to the age and generational structure of societies. Addressing crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, demographic ageing, and climate change increasingly involves considering the roles of generations and age groups, as well as their interplay in terms of conflict and solidarity, to describe existing challenges and develop policy solutions. Understanding the polycrisis’ age-related dynamics and intergenerational significance is crucial for developing effective responses and policy approaches to target current crises, requiring resilience by enhancing the capacity of individuals, communities and systems for adaptation.
To discuss these topics, the 15th Ageing and Social Change Conference, hosted by Linköping University, offers a platform for interdisciplinary and international discussions. It will be held at Linköping University's Campus Norrköping, Sweden. The conference will feature plenary lectures by international speakers who will discuss ageing, intergenerational solidarity, and the polycrisis, highlighting tensions and new directions in research and policy. The program will present a variety of symposia, individual sessions, and plenary panels to enable attendees to explore a wide range of interdisciplinary aspects of ageing and later life.
We look forward to gathering in Norrköping in October 2025.