"Over recent decades, population ageing has become a truly global issue and has increasingly moved to the centre of public attention. Leading international experts in the political and social sciences, demography and history analyse the political and social consequences of demographic ageing. Together the contributions offer three main observations. First, the steadily-rising share of retirees has put pension systems under increasing pressure and has provoked profound pension reforms in many industrialized countries. Second, ageing societies experience significant changes both in the established patterns of transition from work to retirement as well as in the traditional concepts of retirement and old age. Third, running alongside the shift in the balance between younger and older people, the questions of generational justice have increasingly gained prominence in the Western world. This book is essential reading for all those concerned with the profound challenges faced by an ageing world"--