Dr George Leeson

George Leeson specialises in the impact of our demographic transition – the change from high levels of mortality and fertility to much low levels with people living longer lives. He explains the phenomenon in which for two centuries our populations have been getting older. People on average are living much longer and having fewer children. In the twenty-first century at the current rate of change half the population of Europe will be over fifty years old. These are massive social and economic challenges.

As Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing, Dr George Leeson is one of the UK’s leading authorities on increased longevity, ageing, and the social and demographic implications of longer lives. The Institute, founded more than twenty years ago by Prof Sarah Harper is an important research facility within the University of Oxford studying not only demographic and statistical developments but also anthropology, health economics, public policy, and the philosophy of ageing.

Professor Leeson is responsible for the Global Ageing Survey carried out in more than twenty European countries. He is chair of the editorial board of Ageing Horizons and is co-editor of the Journal of Population Ageing. He speaks with authority, experience and rigour on how these massive social changes came about, on the economic and social consequences, and the prospects for further change in our future.