The new goal requires at least 50 per cent of the EU population aged over 55 years to be employed in 2010. The figure today is 38 per cent. A new sub-goal was set for the employment rate by 2005, by which time 67 per cent of people of working age in the EU are to be employed. For women the goal is for 57 per cent to be employed in 2005. Common standards are to be established by 2002 to enable comparison of access to childcare between EU countries.
Similar standards are also to be set up for care of the elderly.
Quality in work is to be improved, for example through improved working environment and organisation of work, through increased development of professional skills, strengthened gender equality and better opportunities for disabled people to participate in working life. Participation in working life by disabled people is to be promoted. Common standards are to be drawn up by the autumn. In Stockholm the heads of state and government supplemented the Lisbon strategy by adding some other areas. One important addition is the issue of the demographic challenge facing Europe as a whole, with its ageing population and declining birth rates.