As the Old World continues to grow old and the demographic imbalances deepen, it becomes increasingly clear how frail the financial (and social) sustainability of the European public welfare systems is. With the current generation's entitlements to pensions, health and long-term-care not being met by the current and next generation's taxes and contributions, the size and composition of government budgets, future growth and ultimately living standards will be significantly affected. However, to get the full picture we must also factor in the shocks caused by the financial near meltdowns in 2008/2009. True enough, these shocks have begun to recede now, but questions remain on how their effects are likely to affect not just the current elderly, but also the rest of the society, and for how long will they linger with us in the decades to come.
In their book ‘Active Ageing and Solidarity between Generations in Europe,’ the authors take a first shot at discussing how these economic shocks, combined with the other long-term challenges of population ageing, have affected the socioeconomic fabric and intergenerational solidarity in Europe. Importantly, in tackling these issues they consider not only the effect on people's income and financial wellbeing, but also focus extensively on family, volunteering, retirement and health. As a notable strength, using the newly available information on individual social networks, the book is able to emphasize the relevance of the social dimension in the overall landscape of elderly wellbeing. This is a genuinely interesting book and the authors manage to craft a compelling case for their interdisciplinary approach to studying the behaviour of older Europeans. This integrated analysis and the wide range of environmental factors it considers (especially interventions by the welfare state) make this book a must-read for academics, policymakers and practitioners alike, regardless of whether they are economists, demographers, sociologists, gerontologists or statisticians.
Structurally, the book represents a collection of short articles that use data from the fourth wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). SHARE is a cross-national microeconomic database that contains household-level information on health and cognition, socioeconomic status, social and family networks and expectations of non-institutionalized individuals aged 50+. The survey is harmonized with the US Health and Retirement Savings and its first wave (which took place in 2004–2005) covered 11 countries, representing the main three regions in Europe: Scandinavia (Denmark and Sweden), Central Europe (Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands) and the Mediterranean (Spain, Italy and Greece). SHARE Wave 2 and 4 took place in 2006–2007 and 2010–2011, respectively, with the Czech Republic and Poland joining the survey from the second wave on. Wave 4 also included Estonia, Hungary, Portugal and Slovenia, but had Greece dropping out. The third wave of SHARE, named SHARELIFE, took place in 2008–2009 and has only retrospective questions that aim to record the respondents’ life history. As an innovation in Wave 4, SHARE started to collect harmonized social network information using the name generator approach and the first results from this new module are presented in this book.
Content-wise, the volume is organized in four sections. Given the number of articles in each section, the comments here are rather general, and not necessarily focused on the merits of each individual article. The first section (Chapters 2–6) focuses on the effect of the crisis on the income, wealth and consumption of 50+ Europeans. Specifically, results show that those most affected by the crisis are single females and people with low education, low income and poor health. In response to an adverse shock (like an income reduction), households mostly reacted by reducing financial wealth, rather than liquidating housing wealth or claiming disability benefits, for instance. Over time, this behaviour increased financial distress (i.e., financial wealth to income ratio), especially in Southern and Eastern Europe, and for low education and single people. The section ends with an interesting cautionary tale: wealth reduction measures and changes in the subjective assessment of one's wellbeing may be more appropriate indicators of old-age poverty than traditional income indicators.
The second section (Chapters 7–12) tackles the effects of the crisis from the labour market perspective. Interestingly, the negative effects of economic hardship on employment income (and overall health) appear to be only transitory. And this also holds for men who start their working life during a recession, i.e., there is little evidence of ‘scarring effects’. Mental health, however, appears to be considerably more affected by periods of financial strain. For instance, unemployment seems associated with higher incidence of depression, although those married or engaging in meaningful social relations appear less exposed to its adverse effects. On the retirement side, the crisis is associated with a reduced rate of labour market exit, which in turn may erode quality of life and intensify depression symptoms, but does not negatively affect subjective or financial wellbeing.
The third section (Chapters 13–23) explores several health (and health care) issues related to ageing. While this is a well-researched area, there are several novel contributions. The first one is related to adding social network characteristics to the determinants of the divergence between subjective and objective health measures. The second one documents the link between old age cognition and early life circumstances. Finally, results from the first hearing impairment study based on SHARE data make a strong case for early screenings and provision of hearing aids as avenues to increase community and social interactions, and promote active and healthy ageing.
The final section (Chapters 24–34) is perhaps the most exciting. It represents the first attempt to document the nature of the social networks and their links with areas such as health and health care, cognition, socioeconomic status and general wellbeing, and intergenerational solidarity. Several interesting regional patterns are registered, with the map of social cohesion in Europe fitting quite well the North–South health gradient. Overall, income and wealth seem to have a beneficial effect on the social network size, while early retirement appears detrimental. One crucial aspect of social networks is their association with giving and receiving care. Obviously, care decisions across all Europe are related to country-specific social norms and familism. But the reciprocal nature of help has also considerable weight, lending support to intergenerational solidarity considerations.
All in all, the book was written with a general reader in mind and as such, is accessible to both specialists and non-specialists. It definitely succeeds in providing a general picture of many micro-level aspects of active ageing and solidarity between generations in Europe. Moreover, by closely studying social cohesion and social embeddedness, it contributes to the overall debate on the role of the interpersonal factors in the elderly economic choices. The only shortcoming of the book is that it is generally not technical enough to warrant identifying causality between any of the outcomes and the forcing factors it investigates. While this was beyond the scope of the book, perhaps future editions would find implementing such an approach quite valuable, especially given the relevance of the topics and the thought-provoking findings it presents.
