Ageing populations in post-industrial democracies. Comparative studies of policies and politics

Most advanced democracies are currently experiencing accelerated population ageing, which fundamentally changes not just their demographic composition; it can also be expected to have far-reaching political and policy consequences.

This volume brings together an expert set of scholars from Europe and North America to investigate generational politics and public policies within an approach explicitly focusing on comparative political science. This theoretically unified text examines changing electoral policy demands due to demographic ageing, and features analysis of USA, UK, Japan, Germany, Italy and all major EU countries.

As the first sustained political science analysis of population ageing, this monograph examines both sides of the debate. It examines the actions of the state against the interests of a growing elderly voting bloc to safeguard fiscal viability, and looks at highly-topical responses such as pension cuts and increasing retirement age. It also examines the rise of ‘grey parties’, and asks what, if anything, makes such pensioner parties persist over time, in the first ever analysis of the emergence of pensioner parties in Europe.

Ageing Populations in Post-Industrial Democracies will be of interest to students and scholars of European politics, and to those studying electoral and social policy reform.

Official publication date 1st January 2012.

Contents:

1. Mapping the Field: Comparative Generational Politics and Policies in Ageing Democracies Achim Goerres and Pieter Vanhuysse
2. Explaining the Success of Pensioners’ Parties: A Qualitative-Comparative Analysis of 31 Polities Séan Hanley 3. Rhetoric and Action on Ageing in the World's 'Oldest' Democracies: Party Platforms and Labor Policies in Germany, Italy and Japan Jennifer Dabbs Sciubba
4. Live Longer, Work Longer? Intergenerational Fairness in Retirement Age Reforms in Germany and the United Kingdom Martin Hering
5. Pension Regimes, Gender and Generational Inequalities: The Persistence of Institutional Differences in Ageing Post-Industrial Democracies Mehmet F. Aysan
6. Accelerating Smaller Cutbacks to Delay Larger Ones? The Politics of Timing and Alarm Bells in OECD Pension Generosity Retrenchment Markus Tepe and Pieter Vanhuysse
7. Population Ageing, the Elderly, and the Generosity of Standard and Minimum Pensions Juan Fernandez
8. The Family and the Welfare State: The Impact of Public Provision for Families on Young People's Demand for Public Childcare Across 21 Nations Achim Goerres and Marcus Tepe 9. Cohort, Class and Attitudes to Redistribution in Two Liberal Welfare States: Britain and the United States, 1996-2006 Jonas Edlund and Stefan Svallfors
10. How Family Policies Affect Women's Formation of Domestic Unions - And Why it Matters for Fertility Andrej Kokkonen
11. Epilogue: Conflict and Convergence: An American Perspective on the Politics of Ageing Welfare Atates Robert B. Hudson