Athina Vlachantoni was born in 1980, and grew up in Athens where she experienced the most effective, in her opinion, 'Welfare State': her close and extended family. She studied Social Policy in London and Oxford, and since 2007 she has been teaching and participating in the research done in the field of gerontology at the University of Southampton in England, holding the position of senior lecturer. Her research interests are constantly evolving both thematically and geographically, but always concerned with the implications of population aging in the family, society and the welfare state. She started studying the health insurance system in Greece and the role of women in social discourse and continued with comparative studies of the pension system in Europe. She is now undertaking research on the elderly care in England, the consequences of migration for the elderly "left behind" in China and Africa, and the pensions in both the developing and the developed world. She has a mainly personal but also academic interest in the social, political and economic conditions in Greece.