In the Countries of the Old: Population Ageing and the Future of Social Change

That population ageing is occurring throughout the world is indisputable. More problematic are the social consequences of this demographic phenomenon. Some see population ageing as an accomplishment (due, for example, to declining mortality and increasing control over reproduction), and others see an opportunity or demographic dividend. Most commentators, however, point to the problems and challenges associated with population ageing, sometimes speaking in demographically apocalyptic terms. In this presentation, we examine two presumed consequences of population ageing: tendencies toward attitudinal rigidity and sociopolitical conservatism, both hypothesized to lead to a slowdown and even cessation of social change. Data are drawn from 42 years (1972 to 2004) of the NORC General Social Surveys and 10 years (2002 to 2012) of the European Social Surveys. Using various analytic approaches, we describe and decompose trends into various demographic mechanisms, such as intracohort ageing, cohort replacement, and period shifts, with adjustments for compositional differences. The results support three general conclusions: (1) sociopolitical attitude change occurs among all observed cohorts; (2) changes are more likely to be in a liberal than a conservative direction; and (3) attitude change in the older cohorts often occurs in the same direction and at a similar rate as in younger cohorts, and sometimes at a rate sufficient to narrow the generational gap. In other words, changes in sociopolitical attitudes appear to be dominated by period effects. We also examine indicators of social change occurring during this 40-year period. We conclude that the population ageing that occurred in recent decades was not inimical to the occurrence of social change.