The International Handbook on Ageing and Public Policy is an encyclopaedic read, and is without a doubt the most comprehensive and engaging treatment of that interface between ageing and public policy over the past three decades. It serves as an essential and necessary resource for graduate scholars as well as experienced scholars and policy makers alike. The book is testament to the fact that human history has arrived at a crucial moment when in a decade's time the global number of persons aged 65+ will outnumber the sum of children aged five years and under. Such a state of affairs implies that public policy of future years will be very different from what we have inherited from the past and that is in practice today. This will, as a result, demand an expert view of the beginnings of ageing policy, its modern development and contemporary dilemmas.
The International Handbook on Ageing and Public Policy includes 37 chapters, authored by some 50 distinguished experts, each offering an expert take on various topics in ageing and public policy. Each chapter examines various national state approaches to welfare provisions for older people and highlights alternatives based around the voluntary and third-party sector, families and private initiatives. The book is organised in a user-friendly manner as issues are broken down and split into six comprehensive sections – context, pensions, health, welfare, case studies, and policy innovation and civil society. Part One focuses on the contextual features surrounding the policy challenges for mature societies. Authors discuss at length the drivers of demographic change in the 20th and 21st centuries (George W. Leeson), the biodemographic perspective on longevity and ageing (Bruce A. Carnes), migration and ageing societies (Sarah Harper), the mechanical contributions of ageing to global income inequality (Parfait M. Eloundou-Enyegue and Michel Tenikue), and population ageing and the size of the welfare state (Vincenzo Galasso and Paola Profeta).
Part Two brings together the discussion on policy challenges for mature societies by focusing on pensions, and present introspective deliberations on global pension systems (Robert Holzmann), the design and implementation of pension systems in developing countries (David E. Bloom and Roddy McKinnon), the dynamics of pension wealth (Zhenyu Li and Anthony Webb), issues concerning rational pension reform (Axel Börsch-Supan) and the impact of national accounts on intergenerational transfers (Ron Lee and Andy Mason).
The third part of the book focuses on the health policy challenges for mature societies. Chapters included herein treat the assessment of the cost-effectiveness of therapies for older people (Richard Edlin), health-care expenditure growth in ageing populations (Ed Westerhout), and the quest to develop appropriate and effective care for people with chronic disease (Bert Vrijhoef and Arianne Elissen). Welfare principles characterise the fourth part of the book by developing reflective accounts on the sustainability and intergenerational justice in age-related transfers (Kenneth Howse), health and social protection policies for older people in Latin America (Peter Lloyd-Sherlock), ageing electorates and gerontocracy in a global scenario (Fernando M. Torres-Gil and Kimberly Spencer-Suarez), the need to work beyond retirement age (David Lain and Sarah Vickerstaff), and the relationship between families, older persons and care in South Africa (Jaco Hoffman).
Parts Five and Six investigate policy and practitioner responses to the challenges of population ageing. The former includes treatises on sustaining the Nordic welfare model in the face of population ageing (Virpi Timonen and Mikko Kautto), kinship solidarity in Southern Europe (Chiara Saraceno), ageing and social policy in Australia (Jeni Warburton), pension systems in China (Taichang Chen), the impact of technology in reshaping the processes of providing health care for ageing populations (Robin Gauld), ageing and care-giving in America in the light of an increasing immigrant workforce (B. Lindsay Lowell) and Canada's Live-in Caregiver Program (Ivy Lynn Bourgeault and Jelena Atanackovic). Consequently, Part Six focuses on policy innovation and civil society. It includes a discussion of intergenerational programmes and policies in ageing societies (Matthew Kaplan and Mariano Sánchez), the connection between private-sector provision and dependent older women in Latin America (Nélida Redondo), the role of older people in the voluntary sector (Karsten Hank and Marcel Erlinghagen), the third sector as a provider of services for older people (Ewa Leś), state–third sector partnership frameworks (Ingo Bode), microfinance and community-provided welfare (Ed Collom), the role of faith-based organisations in the provision of care for older people (Lori Carter-Edwards, James H. Johnson Jr, Allan M. Parnell and Harold G. Koenig), programmes targeting the reskilling of older workers (John Field and Roy Canning) and, finally, retirement planning and financial literacy (Annamaria Lusardi).
The vast literature presented in the International Handbook on Ageing and Public Policy informs us that the triumvirate of health, ageing and pensions is presenting one of the most profound puzzles in modern and contemporary social welfare. Indeed, the irreversible trends associated with traditional demographic transitions led to the unprecedented numbers and proportions of older persons in modern society, movements that will be leading to reversing the population pyramid. Certainly, public policy has a key role to play in helping to solve these puzzles, and it is for this very reason that this book is a great resource. It dissects present public policy trends in ageing welfare, throws light on issues that are generally obscure even to knowledgeable public policy and gerontology researchers, whilst also presenting possible roadmaps for those wishing to contain the challenges of population ageing, and perhaps, even transform them into opportunities for both present and incoming older persons.
One cannot advocate enough a detailed reading of the International Handbook on Ageing and Public Policy, expertly edited by Sarah Harper and Kate Hamblin, since it provides a comprehensive and in-depth view into a wide range of public policy phenomena, whilst also revealing just how ageing welfare has emerged as a highly vibrant and fluid branch of public policy. All chapters are written by top scholars in the field who are also astute commentators on public policy trends. This book will interest anybody who is concerned with policy challenges due to the coming of the ‘age of ageing’. It certainly is and will be for many years an invaluable resource for research on ageing and public policy.
