5. SHARE Project

The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a multidisciplinary and cross-national panel database of micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks of about 140,000 individuals aged 50 or older (around 380,000 interviews). SHARE covers 27 European countries and Israel.

The data are available to the entire research community free of charge. For a summary overview and research results of SHARE, you can download our latest First Results Book: Health and Socio-economic Status over the Life Course.

SHARE responds to a Communication by the European Commission calling to "examine the possibility of establishing, in co-operation with Member States, a European Longitudinal Ageing Survey". SHARE has become a major pillar of the European Research Area, selected as one of the projects to be implemented in the European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) in 2006 and given a new legal status as the first ever European Research Infrastructure Consortium (SHARE-ERIC) in March 2011.

SHARE is centrally coordinated by Prof. Dr. h.c. Axel Börsch-Supan, Ph.D. and the International Coordinator of SHARE, Dr. Annette Scherpenzeel, at the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging (MEA), Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy. It is harmonized with the U.S. Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and has become a role model for several ageing surveys worldwide. SHARE’s scientific power is based on its panel design that grasps the dynamic character of the ageing process. SHARE’s multi-disciplinary approach delivers the full picture of the ageing process. Rigorous procedural guidelines and programs ensure an ex-ante harmonized cross-national design.

Country - Representing Scientific Partner Institutions of SHARE for ROMANIA is Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration and the the Country Team is coordinated by Prof. dr. Alin Andries (Country Team Leader) and Prof. Dr. Mircea Asandului (Country Team Operator)