Silver Economy Initiative
Ambition
HEC Paris is launching an unprecedented initiative dedicated to the Silver Economy, Healthy Ageing, and Care. This initiative will analyze the economic and social challenges linked to ageing and increased life expectancy.
It will highlight solutions to support this transition through broad-based innovation (technological, social, behavioural, etc.), the development of inclusive business models, and the emergence of new societal frameworks.
By 2030, demographic ageing will accelerate: more than 23% of the French population will be 65 years old or over. In Europe, seniors will represent nearly 27% of the population by 2050.
This shift — which affects all areas of life including health, work, consumption, and social cohesion — is both a major challenge and a strategic opportunity. While many seniors remain active and engaged, others face isolation, chronic illness, and economic vulnerability.
This reality calls for urgent innovation in public policy, as well as in the anticipation of new economic and organizational models—particularly within companies—to respond to the physiological, psychological, and social needs of older adults, to prevent isolation, and to promote autonomy, dignity, and contribution.
The initiative will also address training, long-term health maintenance, and more broadly the emergence of new life rhythms and unprecedented intergenerational social models.
In addition, the Silver Economy—estimated at more than €130 billion in France by 2030—represents fertile ground for the development of innovative and sustainable solutions in health, housing, mobility, and services (also known as AgeTech), though it remains fragmented and underdeveloped. HEC Paris’ strong entrepreneurial and innovation ecosystem will play an active role in this initiative.
This initiative is built on an integrated approach that considers the specific needs at each stage of ageing:
Ages 50–65, still professionally active: anticipating career evolution, fostering inclusion, and supporting caregivers.
Ages 65–75: prioritizing engagement, volunteering, and lifelong learning.
Ages 75+: focusing on autonomy, dignity, and systemic solutions, with housing as a central lever for social innovation.
These challenges will be addressed through three main pillars:
- Developing innovative economic models to meet the diverse needs across ageing stages.
- Anticipating and designing economic and organizational models to respond to the ageing of the workforce and promote the inclusion of employees aged 50+.
- Driving new societal models to combat ageism and strengthen cooperation between public, private, and nonprofit actors.
estimated size of the Silver Economy market in France by 2030
that will be 65 or older in 2030
in the 75–84 age group in just 12 years
(the “2030 wall”)
FROM IDEA TO IMPACT
Together with partners, HEC seeks to bring together multiple academic disciplines, visionary business leaders, public institutions, and civil society to design solutions for healthy ageing and to create the European benchmark for ageing-related innovation—rooted in excellence, inclusion, and impact.
Join us in transforming the challenge of ageing into an opportunity for innovation and social impact.
Companies and donors: your support will enable the development of concrete solutions — from new economic and organizational models to field-based experiments — as well as pedagogical tools and coalitions capable of influencing policy and practices to build a resilient society that respects its elders and understands the extended longevity of future generations.
Longer life is not a constraint: it is a laboratory for innovation. It is up to us to turn it into an opportunity for the economy, for organizations, and for society as a whole.