On April 11, 2025, the Felizberta Lo Padilla Tong School of Social Sciences, in collaboration with the Department of Sociology and Social Policy and International Master of Comparative Social Policy Programme at Lingnan University, hosted a Distinguished Scholar Lecture. The event gathered academics, NGO representatives, and experts from health and aging-related agencies.
Professor Alan Walker (D.Litt., CBE, FBA, FASS, FGSA), Emeritus Professor of Social Policy and Social Gerontology at the University of Sheffield and Co-director of the Healthy Lifespan Institute, delivered the lecture. Professor Walker, a world-renowned scholar in social policy and social gerontology, drew on research data to address aging challenges and propose strategies for sustainable aging societies. He began with a demographic overview, noting Europe as the oldest region globally. Europe's aging experience offers insights for rapidly aging regions like East Asia, which face similar trends due to falling fertility rates and increased longevity. This overview emphasized the global nature of aging, showing that regions worldwide, regardless of development status, are undergoing significant demographic shifts toward older populations.
Professor Walker discussed multiple challenges facing aging societies, including unprecedented longevity trajectory, shrinking labor forces, the fiscal sustainability of pensions and healthcare, the prevalence of multimorbidity, challenges in maximizing the potential of ICT and AI, the rising need for long-term care, and the necessity for new forms of social and political citizenship.
Emphasizing the dynamic nature of aging, he called for social policies that not only address old age but also focus on aging. His recommendations for the European Union, based on extensive research across European countries, included linking pension ages to healthy life expectancy (HLE), supporting extended working lives through age management policies, enhancing focus on HLE, harnessing ICT and AI to aid aging populations, implementing changes in long-term care, and fostering new forms of citizenship for older adults. These insights from Europe could offer relevant ways of thinking and policy initiatives for Hong Kong and East Asia, particularly in overcoming structural lag in policy responses. The lecture concluded with a call to foster a positive vision of later life and promote active aging across the life course.
The event also featured responses from Prof Law Chi Kwong, Honorary Professor at the School of Social Sciences. He discussed the critical shortage of quality labor to meet the aging population's needs and address the challenges of long-term care in Hong Kong. He emphasized the need for strategic planning to better balance community and residential care and expressed optimism about the role of technological advancements and gerontechnology in enhancing elder care.