In social policy analysis, cross-national case studies can be particularly challenging to write. Even within a region of the world (in this case, Europe), the specific country contexts can vary on so many dimensions (e.g., contrasting welfare models, types of market economies, organization of care delivery and so forth), that there is a risk of ‘if you've seen one, you've seen them all’ that often limits the insights one can draw. Ervik and Linden attempt to address this challenge by imposing a unifying theme across the chapters of The Making of Ageing Policy. So, in addition to the more typical discussions of stakeholder influence (Chapters 4 and 5) and political power struggles (Chapters 7 and 8) familiar in texts underpinned by the theoretical frameworks of political science, the editors have asked their contributors to discuss ageing policy in the context of two competing policy paradigms: ‘productive ageing’ and ‘active ageing’. This is a clever device that works to varying degrees throughout the book. As they correctly suggest in their introduction ‘the differentiation between types of ideas is useful for one to grasp how actors argue for and promote change (p. 17).’
Productive ageing, the older of the two ideas, emphasizes the potential for older people to be economically productive; while active ageing is more ambitious in its focus on quality of life as people age and the process of optimising opportunities for health, participation and security. Implicit in the active ageing vision is that ageing policy should place greater value on people's autonomy and choices as they age. The European Union adopted the active ageing concept as a basis for policy practice and issued core policy directives in support of this. Reflecting this broader ideological framework, the policy directives ranged from demographic renewal (i.e., policies to increase birth rates, combining work and childcare) to creating more jobs and longer working lives to addressing health inequalities. Yet, challenges arise from developing indicators for measuring progress on these directives and resources for monitoring them. Consequently, a greatly narrowed focus on pensions and labour markets has been adopted by the EU in recent years. Moreover, the current economic constraints across the EU have resulted in a greater emphasis on shifting responsibility to individuals rather than giving individuals more autonomy and choice.
The Making of Ageing Policy follows three policy areas in Europe: public pensions, health and long-term care, and the labour market. The chapters particularly relevant to this Journal's readership are Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8. Here, the task of looking at differences and similarities between countries is somewhat easier in that now pension policy is largely a debate about the relative roles of public and private pensions, fiscal sustainability of public programs in the face of demographic pressures, and how to get people to work longer (raising retirement ages and discouraging early retirement). Interestingly, among the countries examined, only the UK clings to a somewhat different and expanded set of policy objectives in its reform efforts and includes adequacy of income/avoidance of poverty as well as notions of generational equity and fairness in its considerations.
Of course, the interactions between pension programs, health and long-term care programs and labor force participation are all so inter-related that anyone with an interest in any of these would gain insight from reading The Making of Ageing Policy front to back. That said, the strongest discourse in the book comes at the end where Ervik and Linden very nicely bring back together the challenges of formulating policy reform in an era of widespread fiscal constraint and the opportunities that may arise when the concept of active aging once again steers the way strategies are formulated.
