Ageing Populations in Post-Industrial Democracies: Comparative Studies of Policies and Politics

While the consequences of population ageing in developed and democratic nations have been considered by scholars from many disciplines, the editors note that "political science as a discipline has lagged behind in developing an integrated body of knowledge to answer the question of which generations get what, when, and how," and state that this volume "aims to be a building block for such a body of research" (p. 1).The two main research questions explored throughout the volume are: (a) Can it be said that generational warfare has replaced class warfare in industrialized countries?and (b) Are ageing democratic societies driven by the growing electoral clout of the elderly (the elderly power hypothesis) or rather by cost-containment policies targeted toward the elderly (so-called leakage hypothesis)?The volume brings together a collection of eleven studies from twelve scholars in six countries, and provides a mix of quantitative and qualitative studies, each with an "explicitly comparative-political lens" (p.9), intended to explore how political systems function as major generational changes take place in the context of fiscal restraint.The studies are diverse in the range of approaches that are used (some following a rational public choice approach, other relying more on path dependence and institutionalist perspectives) and, we find, insightful in the conclusions that are reached.The editors do a nice job of "mapping the field" in their introductory chapter, but an important quibble relates to their (widely shared) use of 65 and older as the marker of old when most of their comparisons extend extend over six decades; given that they emphasize the observed increases in life expectancy (including healthy life expectancy), it seems odd to continue to fixate on age 65.Indeed, the worsening of the dependency ratio would be largely offset if the concept of old were adjusted to reflect such gains; that point is noted (p.8) but then ignored.In any event, population projections do not play a major role in the chapters that follow.There are a few unfortunate editorial lapses: one is the occasional careless use of numbers, with a notable example appearing in Table 1.1, bottom panel, which reports, "Elderly care costs as a share of GDP" in 1980 and 2005.For the OECD-30 it is reported as 0.58 in 2005, meaning that a preposterous 58 per cent of GDP was used in this way, even though the text interprets it as "0.58 per cent of GDP" (p.8); furthermore, there is no description of the concept that is measured, and the source note is not sufficiently informative to enable readers to investigate.The long-run decline in the labour force participation rate of older male workers is noted, together

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