gerontonomia
As electorates age, governments face stronger incentives to prioritise pensions and low inflation over economic growth, high employment and social investment. Vlandas terms the resulting political economy a gerontonomia: democratically sustained economic stagnation.
Concept: The Political Quarterly, 2023 · Evidence: World Politics, January 2026
Eurostat
The EU population is ageing. The projections show no reversal.
450.6 million people
Where the EU stands, 1 January 2025
Change over ten years
2015 compared with 2025
Highest and lowest
Share aged 65+, 1 January 2025
Median age ranges from 39.6 years in Ireland to 49.1 in Italy.
EUROPOP2023 projection
2025 compared with 2100
Source: Eurostat, Population structure and ageing (datasets demo_pjanind and demo_pjangroup; projections EUROPOP2023). Globally, Our World in Data puts the number of people aged 65 and over at around 830 million today, projected to reach 1.7 billion by 2054.
Definition
Grey voters hold a distinct position in the economy.
Vlandas defines grey voters as individuals who are old, retired and politically active. They are outside the labour market. They rely on public pensions and on income from assets rather than on wages. They have a lower remaining lifespan over which to benefit from public and social investment. Their policy preferences follow from that position.
Young
Labour market entry
- Education and training
- Employment prospects
- Housing affordability
Middle-aged
Earnings and security
- Wages and working conditions
- Childcare and family policy
- Protection against unemployment
Grey
Pensions and price stability
- Pension benefits
- Social care and health care
- Low inflation, even at the cost of unemployment
- Asset and house prices
World Politics, 2026
The argument, in four steps.
Preferences diverge
Elderly voters care more about pensions and less about childcare, family and education policy.
The electoral penalty weakens
They are less likely to penalise governments for low growth and unemployment.
Budgets are reallocated
Grey power pushes governments to protect the growing share of the budget allocated to pensions, at the expense of growth-enhancing policy, above all social and public investment. Policy responsiveness during recessions also weakens.
Growth falls
The reallocation lowers economic growth.
Method
How the argument is tested.
Scope
Micro and macro data across 21 advanced capitalist democracies, from the 1960s onwards.
Multilevel and fixed-effects models
Individual preferences nested within countries. Country effects are absorbed, so estimates rest on variation within countries over time.
Instrumental variables
Used to address reverse causation between ageing and economic performance.
Causal mediation analysis
Tests whether the effect on growth operates through the proposed channel, policy reallocation.
Channel one
Pension protection crowds out investment
Pension costs rise as the population ages. Governments protect them. The adjustment falls on social and public investment, whose returns accrue over longer horizons.
Channel two
Weaker responsiveness in recessions
An ageing electorate reduces the incentive to respond to downturns. Output gaps persist. The cost falls on those still in the labour market.
On this account ageing alters the electoral politics of economic stagnation: low growth is not simply a policy failure but an outcome that remains electorally viable.
Implications
An unstable equilibrium.
A government that protects pensions and keeps inflation low can preside over weak growth and still be re-elected. The disciplining mechanism assumed by the economic voting literature is weakened.
The arrangement serves only part of the electorate. Younger and middle-aged voters bear the cost in stagnant wages, low investment and housing costs. Existing research links the resulting decline in trust in democratic government to rising support for far-right parties.
Therefore gerontonomia undermines the relationship between capitalism and democracy.
Sources
For more information.
Papers
doi.org/10.1177/0010414017710261
doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2021.1932532
doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13301
doi.org/10.1353/wp.2026.a980470
Read without a subscription
politicalquarterly.org.uk
blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog
Data
Elsewhere
spi.ox.ac.uk/ageing-democracies
Where it has been cited
Gerontonomia 