The current and projected low fertility levels for Europe and the continuous increases in life expectancy imply that the region will go through an unprecedented process of population aging, leading to sizeable changes in the age structure of European societies. After reviewing the existing literature on the role played by demographic change as a determinant of economic growth and income convergence, with a focus on the European experience, we analyze the quantitative impact of the projected changes in the age and education composition of the labor force. Using newly available demographic projections, we show that the current demographic trends are expected to cause a slowdown in the speed of income convergence across European countries. Our projection exercise suggests that policies aimed exclusively at improving labor force participation do not appear to be sufficient to counteract the negative effects of aging on income convergence. Instead, we show that reducing the educational attainment gap between Central and Eastern European member states and the rest of the European Union in addition to increasing labor force participation leads to an accelerated pace of income convergence.

The aim of this study is to determine the quantitative impact of changes to the pension system in the Czech Republic valid from January 1, 2013 on public budgets. Changes include the introduction of a funded second-pillar pension scheme and the adjustment of pension schemes under the third pillar. The theoretical part describes the basis of social policy in the areas of pensions, and characterize and compare concepts of pension systems. Following practical part analyzes recent developments in the Czech Republic, the essence of changes to the pension system and the interest of the population to use them. The aim of the study is fulfiled by quantifying impact on public budget. Subsequent analysis shows that changes may help to stabilize it in the next decades, however, a departure from the PAYG system is not required. The introduced second pillar can be problematic in ceratin respects for participants. Additional pension savings in the third pillar is a useful supplement to old age security.

The first chapter is about demographic influence. The second chapter contains the summary of life insurance history. The third chapter show different types of life insurance on the Czech market. The fourth chapter describes different conceptions and meanings of life insurance on the Czech market. The fifth chapter is about new progres in life insurance on the Czech market.

The aim of the thesis is the regional differentiation analysis in the European Union territory. Thesis is focused on the EU Regional policy (its origin, development, objectives and instruments) and mainly on the demographic and economic differentiation in the EU. The demographic differentiation is qualified through the use of natural population increase, net migration and settlement structure. For the economic differentiation there have been used indicators such as GDP per inhabitant, employment and unemployment rate.

On the basis of a complex demographic analysis the thesis defines the areas in South Bohemia, where is apparent a specific development of demographic indicators and tries to find the main causes and consequences of these differences. From the perspective of the demographic indicators state the position of the South Bohemian Region is compared with other regions in the Czech Republic. On the basis of the demographic analysis is created a SWOT analysis of demographic trends of the South Bohemia population. In the final section there are explored impacts of demographic trends on the provision of social services for elderly and impacts on education and medical system in response to changes in the demographic structure of the population of the South Bohemia Region.

Population ageing is one of the most important current problems in developed countries. The goal of my work is the analysis of economic and social problems occasioned by population ageing, population prognosis and the possibility of compensation a population loss and changes in age structure through replacement migration. This is all in the Czech Republic. For my work I will use readily available information databases, mainly the database provided by Czech Statistical Office and the databases of relevant ministries in the Czech Republic. At first I will make demographic predictions using a component method without migration and then I will use replacement migration to compensate a population loss and changes in selected demoeconomic characteristics. The contribution of my work is in the concretization of methodology for calculating the replacement migration and in the results obtained from this study, which will show feasibility of this concept in practice. Last but not least I will look for solutions to the adverse economic impact of population ageing. In my study at first I will explain the concept of an ageing population and analyze past demographic trends in the Czech Republic. The entire chapter I will attend to migration and migration policy. Then I will focus on demographic forecast and especially replacement migration. At the end of my work I will analyze the economic impacts of an ageing population and the possibilities for their solution.

L’impact du niveau d’études sur les performances cognitives est largement connu. Aussi, l’évaluation des sujets de bas ou très bas niveau d’études est un réel challenge pour les cliniciens. D’une part, les outils habituellement utilisés dans le bilan du sujet âgé ne sont pas adaptés aux individus analphabètes ou de bas niveau d’éducation, et, d’autre part, les normes nécessaires à l’interprétation des scores cognitifs ne prennent pas suffisamment en considération cette population de bas niveau scolaire. Ainsi, la question que pose ce travail de thèse est de savoir comment optimiser l’évaluation neuropsychologique de ces sujets de bas niveau scolaires. L’objectif poursuivi par la première étude de cette thèse est de déterminer s’il existe un effet propre du fait de savoir lire et écrire indépendamment de celui de la scolarisation. Pour répondre à cette question, nous avons pu accéder aux données recueillies dans la cohorte mexicaine de Coyoacán qui a la particularité d’avoir un échantillon important de sujets n’ayant jamais été scolarisés. Cette première étude a montré que des sujets n’ayant jamais accédé au système éducatif mais ayant des notions rudimentaires de lecture et d’écriture acquises de manière informelle, ont des performances plus élevées à tous les tests considérés, hormis pour le Set test d’Isaacs (IST), que des sujets ne sachant pas lire et écrire. Ainsi, ces résultats illustrent l’effet des capacités de lecture et d’écriture, un effet distinct de l’effet du niveau de scolarisation. Une seconde difficulté à laquelle doivent faire face les cliniciens est l’absence de normes adaptées aux sujets de bas niveau d’études. Ainsi, un travail autour de l’élaboration de normes adaptées aux sujets de bas niveau d’études a été réalisé dans la cohorte de Coyoacán et nous a permis d’élaborer des normes pour le Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE), le Rappel libre/Rappel indicé 16 items (RL/RI-16) et l’IST, jusque-là inexistantes pour la population âgée mexicaine et qui a la particularité de présenter une forte proportion de sujets de bas niveau d’études. Un second travail de normalisation a été réalisé dans la cohorte AMI, une cohorte menée en milieu rural dans le département de la Gironde dans laquelle la proportion de sujets de bas niveaux est plus élevée qu’en population générale, pour un nouveau test de mémoire visuo-spatiale, le test des gobelets pour lequel nous avons également étudié sa validité dans la détection de la démence. Ces normes classiques, corrigées pour des variables démographiques sont essentielles à l’interprétation des scores cognitifs. Dans le même temps, dans le cas de la démence où l’âge et le niveau d’études sont deux facteurs de risque majeurs, cette pratique habituelle de corriger pour ces variables afin d’établir ou de prédire un diagnostic de démence peut être remise en question. Si des travaux antérieurs ont montré que l’utilisation de scores corrigés diminue la qualité de détection de la démence, la dernière étude de cette thèse a montré qu’il en est de même lorsqu’il s’agit de prédire la démence : les sujets qui deviennent déments à court terme sont mieux classés lorsque les scores ne sont pas corrigés que lorsqu’ils sont corrigés pour l’âge et le niveau d’études. Ainsi, loin de régler le vaste problème de l’évaluation du sujet de bas niveau d’études, cette thèse tente d’apporter des éléments pragmatiques au clinicien sous la forme de tests ou de normes adaptées, mais aussi des éléments de réflexion sur l’utilisation de ces scores. / The effect of education on cognitive performances and neuropsychological assessment outcomes has been well documented so far. Indeed, the assessment of cognitive performance of individuals with low and very low educational level remains a major clinical challenge for several reasons. Firstly, conventional cognitive assessment tools used with elderly patients are not suitable for illiterate or poorly instructed individuals. Secondly, traditional norms used to identify strengths and weaknesses of cognitive performance are not sensible enough to detect cognitive impairments among illiterate or scarcely instructed individuals. Therefore, how to improve the neuropsychological assessment of individuals with low formal educational level is the main research question of this doctoral thesis. To adequately answer to this prior question, four studies have been conducted. The aim of the first study presented in this thesis was to investigate the specific effect of literacy acquisition on cognitive performances independently of education. For this work, we used data collected from the Coyoacán study, a Mexican population-based cohort which presents an important sample of uneducated participants. The main finding of this study was that participants who never attended school but counting with informal literacy abilities, presented better performances for all cognitive tests, except for the Isaacs Set test (IST), compared to their uneducated illiterate counterparts. These findings illustrate the specific effect of literacy skills acquisition on cognitive performances independently of the influence of schooling. The lack of adapted comparative norms is the second major challenge of neuropsychological assessment of individuals with low-educational level. Consequently, our second study aimed at establishing comparative norms for the MMSE, the Free and Cued Selective Reminding Test and the IST, three tests widely used for cognitive evaluation in elderly people. Of note, these norms were specifically established for the Mexican elderly population, which presents a high rate of illiteracy and low-educational level. Finally, a third study aiming at establishing comparative norms for a new visuo-spatial memory-test: the goblets test. For this study, we used data collected from the AMI cohort study which is conducted in rural areas in the South-West of France. Within this third study we also studied the validity of this test in detecting dementia illness. These comparative norms are necessary to interpret cognitive scores. However, as age and education are major risk factors for dementia, correcting for these demographic variables to improve the accuracy of detection or prediction of dementia may be questionable. Consistently with other studies showing that dementia detection accuracy is compromised when corrected scores are used; findings of our last study showed that regarding dementia prediction accuracy, participants developing dementia, in the short term, are better classified when using uncorrected scores for age and education than the corrected ones. To conclude, cognitive assessment of elderly individuals with low-educational level remains still a major clinical barrier to correctly diagnose dementia. However, besides providing clinicians with several pragmatic inputs such as cognitive tests and appropriated comparative norms, we believe that our findings will encourage clinical reflection regarding the use of these scores.

The aim of this finish work is an analysis of selected demographic time series and calculation of their predictions. Concretely, it deals with time series of annual crude birth rate, crude death rate, and the average age of mothers at first birth, all for the time period of 1960-2013. First, demographic terms used further in the work are defined. There is also a theoretical part describing the statistical methods used, specifically the methodology of time series from authors Box-Jenkins. Developement of each time serie is evaluated socio-demographically and the procedure of selecting the most appropriate interpolation model and calculation of predictions derived from it are described. There is also description of a process of selecting a suitable model based on the extrapolation method of predictions with Rolling Origin, construction of predictions derived from it and their comparison with the most suitable interpolation model. At the end there is a comparison of the time series of crude birth rate between the Czech Republic and selected developed country (Sweden), which brings interesting results.

The main goal of this diploma thesis is to analyze and evaluate the situation of older workers on the labour market in the Czech republic, where the population is aging, the population in age category 15-50 is descending and the average life expectancy is growing. These negative events lead, because of economical and social reasons, to the need to stimulate employment of older persons. The thesis is divided into theoretical and practical part. The theoretical part contains the characteristics of the basic terms for the field of employment of older workers and a description of the present demographic situation, along with its prediction. Practical part contains a chapter with selected economic indicators that describe and explain the situation of older persons on the labour market. The practical part also includes a chapter with consenquences of the expected demographic trends on the labour market of the Czech republic. Then there are included the chapters devoted to comparsion of European countries and for selected states there are given practical examples in addressing the issue of employing of older workers. In the final part there are suggested possible solutions for the situation of older workers.

This diploma aims to analyze the development of the European Union Member States for last thirty years in terms of demographic indicators. First chapter is focused on the historical development of the world's population, followed by the development of the European population and political history of the European Union. Next chapter is focused on the most commonly used demographic indicators for international comparisons divided into groups according to demographic processes, their interpretation and calculation. The main part of the work is analysis of selected indicators for the Member States of the EU with regard to the European average of 27 Member States in the period between 1981 and 2011. Another chapter is devoted to modify data for above mentioned simple analysis and cluster analysis, which is located in the last chapter. Cluster analysis was performed using Euclidean distance and using nearest and furthest neighbor and Ward's method. In 1981 the furthest neighbor method divided Member States into five clusters and in 2011 the Ward's method divided Member States again within five clusters, but with a different composition. Original data for Multidimensional description is added to annex with the results of calculations and graphs.