The age-orientation of social policy regimes in OECD countries

This article presents a series of measures of the extent to which social po licies in twenty-one OECD countries are oriented towards the support of eld erly (over 65 or in formal retirement) and non-elderly (under 65 and not re tired) population groups. Employing breakdowns by age in spending on social insurance, education and health, tax expenditures on welfare substituting goods, and housing policy outcomes, this article shows that countries tend to demonstrate a consistent age-orientation across a variety of policy area s and instruments. After correcting for the demographic structure of the po pulation, Greece, Japan, Italy, Spain and the United States have the most e lderly-oriented social policy regimes, while the Netherlands, Ireland, Cana da and the Nordic countries have a more age-neutral repertoire of social po licies. In identifying the age-orientation of social policy as a dimension of distributive politics that is not captured by other welfare state typolo gies, this article suggests the need to develop new accounts of the develop ment of welfare states that include the dimension of age.