Join us for our lunchtime webinar: Irreplaceable: Adapting to lower birth rates and longer lives on Tuesday 29 April 2025, kindly supported by the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.  

Too often, the conversation around adapting to longer lives leads to limited action or policy change, and that around declining birth rates is reduced to pulling levers to maintain “replacement rate”. This short-term approach risks us potentially sleepwalking into a crisis that will impact all parts of our lives.This conversation will set out how longevity and declining birth rates are the transformational demographic trends of our time. The panel will explore how governments should think differently to make the best of longer lives, and adapt to birth rates as they currently are, instead of what they could be.

Maintaining a “replacement rate” of 2.1 children per women is an arbitrary policy objective which nonetheless is central to many discussions around birth rates. The webinar will address alternative ways to understand demographic trends and make suggestions for how policymakers can meaningfully adapt to make the best of longer lives. 

Speakers include:  

Professor Stuart Gietel-Basten – Professor of Social Science and Public Policy, University of Hong Kong 

Rina Biswakarma – PhD researcher – Global Reproductive Health, University College London 

Dermot Grenham – Council Member, Institute and Faculty of Actuaries 

David Sinclair – Chief Executive, International Longevity Centre