"The elderly in South Korea and North Korea during war and peace, and challenges posed by unification" with Prof Jay Lewis & Prof Christopher Davis

Past Event

Date
22 February 2018, 3:00pm - 4:30pm

Location
Oxford Institute of Population Ageing
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR

This Seminar Series is organised by the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing

This joint seminar presentation will make use of concepts related to the study of ageing (life experiences of birth cohorts turning 60, human capabilities) and data related to the Koreas to assess contemporaneous and lagged influences of war, revolution and transition on the elderly in the two countries. The time periods considered will be: unified Korea during 1910-1945 (birth cohorts of 1930, 1935 and 1940); revolutionary establishment of the socialist regime in North Korea; the Korean war during 1950-53 (birth cohort of 1950); and peaceful developments in South Korea and North Korea (1953-2017) in different political, social and economic systems (birth cohort of 1960). The final section of the talk will evaluate the implications for the elderly of possible economic transition in North Korea and the unification of the Koreas.

All welcome, no need to register to attend. Join us for coffee and cake afterwards.

For more information please see www.ageing.ox.ac.uk

For queries please contact administrator@ageing.ox.ac.uk

About the speakers

Prof James B. Lewis is Associate Professor of Korean History, Oriental Institute, Oxford University

Research Interests:

  • History of Korean-Japanese relations prior to 1850
  • Cultural, economic, and social histories of premodern Korea and Japan
  • World history; environmental and epidemiological history of East Asia

Prof Christopher Davis became a Professorial Research Fellow at OIPA in October 2016. His most recent article on ageing (2016) is entitled The Changing Capabilities of Cohorts of the Elderly in Russia During 1990-2020: Measurement Using a Quantitative Index (now under review by a journal). This examined the life experiences and characteristics at the age of 60 of the Russia births cohorts of 1930, 1935, 1940, 1950 and 1960. His initial new research for OIPA will make use of a similar quantitative methodology to carry out an international comparison of the changing capabilities of cohorts of the elderly during 1990-2010 in seven countries that have experienced major wars and economic crises since 1930: China, Germany, Japan, Russia, South Korea, UK and USA.