The Challenge of an Ageing Electorate: Changes in the Formation of Social Policy in Europe?

Abstract

Population ageing in Europe is likely to lead to changes in the provision of pensions and health services. Retirement ages, work practices and housing needs will be affected but changes are likely to be mediated via new technology and hence cannot be exactly predicted. While the ageing population is usually projected in terms of dependency or support ratios, in this article projections are for older people as a proportion of eligible voters. American experience of the growing power of the elder's lobby is related to the European context, with emphasis on the growth of a framework for lobbying activity in a European context. While a mass movement of older people is even less likely in Europe than in the USA, public choice theory would suggest that as the numbers of older people rises towards 50 per cent of eligible voters, politicians and policy makers will change their policies even without a united elderly bloc vote. There is also empirical evidence to suggest that policy makers perceive elderly people as a homogeneous, and hence a more powerful, bloc than their real divisions m terms of age, class, ethnicity and gender might indicate.