Age and Cohort Change

Age and Cohort Change (ACC) worked in two major areas in 2013: beliefs and skills. The former focused on projections of beliefs and values over the life course, the latter on cognition and skills, especially with respect to aging.

Multi-ethnic people © Rawpixel | iStock

Multi-ethnic people

The links between aging and workforce productivity with the goal of improving senior workers' skills are critical to countries with aging populations. More than just biology influences how a population changes. Countries with active populations, for example, tend to have older people with higher skill levels than countries with sedentary populations. Lifestyle can make a population “effectively younger” than its biological age. There are different intelligence types that, given technological change, may improve workers' cognition as they age.

A population’s attitudes about values such as religion, education, and family structure can also influence workplace performance. They can determine whether a particular set of cultural values will be passed to younger generations or just disappear. By building databases on current attitudes and beliefs, the researchers are developing scenarios of likely changes in the whole world through the year 2050.

ACC research  received considerable attention in several general science journals (e.g., New Scientist) and was discussed in media around the world, including The New York Times, CNN, and The Economist. 

Skills projections and cognitive performance

Age and Cohort Change (ACC) projections and cognitive performance showed that workers improve in cognitively intense tasks, particularly those requiring fluid cognitive abilities, over the working life. More

Projections of religious beliefs and values

In work on religious beliefs and values in 2013, Age and Cohort Change (ACC), headed by Vegard Skirbekk, worked on projections of beliefs and values over the life course that are related to demographic behavior. More


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Last edited: 22 May 2014

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