Resource
Demands for redistributive policies in an era of demographic aging
The rival pressures from age and class in 15 OECD countries
- English
Summary (English)
This paper is about the relative impact of retirement and social class on individual attitudestowards welfare state policies in advanced industrial democracies. Which factoris more important in explaining individuals' social policy preferences: socio-economicbackground or retirement? How can differences in patterns between countries be explained?These questions are explored using ordered logistic regression models on the1996 ISSP Role of Government data set for fifteen countries. First, it is shown that retirementmatters; there are consistent differences between policy areas that can be explainedby life-cycle salience. Particularly in the case of preferences regarding educationspending, being retired matters more than the socio-economic background. Second,some countries, such as the United States, show a higher salience of the age/retirementcleavage across all policy fields; age/retirement is a more important line of political conflictin these countries than in others. Third, country characteristics matter. Althoughthe relative salience of retirement varies across policy areas, a large variance within eachof the policy areas across countries is evident. Most interestingly, the more generousthe state provisions are in a given policy area, the stronger the age/retirement cleavageis (with the exception of pension policies). Overall, the findings of this study are not inline with simple rational choice models. Instead, the explorative results call for morecomplex theoretical models, including institutional structures, in order to gain a betterunderstanding of individuals' attitudes towards the welfare state in aging societies.
Related info
Note
MPIfG Discussion Paper 08/3.