rage to new categories of beneficiaries or higher benefits. Austerity policies barely allow existing levels of protection to be maintained where they do not impose drastic cuts in social security budgets."
Retrenchment in social services and funding therefor came about as a result of the economic stagnation of the 1970s and the
demands of a more competitive global economy. The first waves of reduction in government welfare spending were concentrated in areas such as housing subsidies, public income supplements for the indigent and unemployment benefits. In the late 1980s, Brown reports that "all European welfare states continued to favor the elderly as they had during the first phases of retrenchment."
Demographic Factors. In the 1990s and beyond, various demographic factors were making it more difficult for the EC states to avoid cutbacks in funding for the sustenance and care of the elderly:
(1) A combination of improved medical care and declining rates of fertility were resulting in an imbalance between the financial resources being generated by those employed and the financial drains upon the system represented by a more numerous aging generation. The percentage of the population 65 or older in the world increased from 6.5 percent in 1985 to an estimated 9.7 percent in 2025. However, the comparable figures for selected EC nations are much higher, in the 12-15 percent and 20-30 percent ranges, respectively. Because of lengthening life expectancy, the fastest growing generation in Western Europe is the over 80 group, which is expected to grow by 200 percent in Western Europe, 400 percent in Switzerland and 600 percent in Finland, between 1960 and 2040.
(2) Because of diminishing family ties and changing life styles (fewer and later marriages, fewer children and more divorces), more and more elderly people are living alone.
(3) Because of economic downsizing or out of choice, more and more of the elderly a...