The wider social context of population aging - myths and facts The wider social context of population aging - myths and facts The wider social context of aging of the population - myths and facts
Abstract
The present article provides an untraditional explication of the proces of aging of the population, which the author presented for the first time at the International Conference in Vienna in 2005. Special attention is devoted to the myths, disseminated by economists, that aging is a catastrophe, reform of the system of pension insurance is indispensible and that the cuts in social expenditure represent the end of the social state.
He counters the policy of compulsor savings as the method to secure oneself in old age. The analysis no doubt reveals that society is aging and has to be solved.
However it is a change in lifestyles and not mere increase in the numbers of aged persons. That is why the reform must deal with employment, education, health care, family policies and not only with the visible need of the proces - with old age pensions.