Anna Amilon

Areas of work

Anna Amilon works quantitatively in the fields of ageing and disability. In the field of ageing, her current research has a strong focus on informal caregivers in the Danish welfare state context. She examines how caregivers’ roles and responsibilities have evolved over the past 25 years, in parallel with welfare state retrenchment in the organisation of elder care. A central theme in her work is the consequences of informal care work for caregivers’ quality of life, well-being, and risk of loneliness. She also works more generally on issues related to loneliness among older adults, including the extent to which participation in social activities can help prevent or reduce loneliness. Finally, she studies older workers’ labour market participation and retirement decisions, and is currently investigating whether greater flexibility in later working life can support longer working careers.

In the field of disability, her research has a particular focus on disability from a family perspective. In particular, she analyses the long-term consequences of growing up with a parent or sibling with a disability, including how such childhood circumstances may affect education, labour market attachment, and well-being later in life. In addition, she works on different conceptualisations of disability and examines how choices of definitions and measurement approaches influence research and analytical findings. This includes both methodological and conceptual considerations regarding how disability can best be operationalised in survey and register data, and the implications this has for our understanding of living conditions among people with disabilities and their families.

Methods

Anna Amilon's core competencies are in quantitative registry and survey analyses. She has many years’ experience with effect measurement and socioeconomic analysis. Moreover, via several research projects and desk studies she has acquired in-depth knowledge of some of the longer term panel investigations carried out by VIVE, including SHILD (Survey of Health, Impairment and Living Conditions in Denmark) and Ældredatabasen (the Elderly Database). 

Background

After completing her PhD at Lund University, Sweden, i 2007, Anna Amilon was employed at the former SFI, now VIVE, as a researcher. She was promoted to Senior Researcher in 2010, and in the former SFI she was Head of Programme for the pension area and Head of Research of the former department for Social policy and Welfare. Through the FSE-financed research projects “The effects of child spacing on educational achievements and incomes in adulthood” and ”The effects of a legal reform on divorce probabilities and pension savings”, for instance, she has accumulated knowledge about effect measurement, pension and employment as well as equality effects of interventions. In the ongoing research project ”MATURE – Meeting the Challenges in Population Ageing Through Innovation and Cultural Adaptation of Welfare Society” for Innovationsfonden (Innovation Fund Denmark), Anna Amilon is carrying out research on elderly people’s voluntary work and preferences regarding the elder service of the future. In addition, she has performed research on socioeconomic effects of social interventions, pension, employment and family policy and equality. In 2013, Anna Amilon was appointed Associate Professor at Lund University, Sweden.