GerontonomiaDefinitionsThe dataIn the pressIn research

theterms

Gerontocracy, gerontonomia and grey power describe different things.

Definitions

Grey voters

Individuals who are old, retired and politically active. The definition is deliberately narrow. It does not mean all older people, but those outside the labour market, reliant on public pensions or on income from assets rather than wages, and with a lower remaining lifespan over which to benefit from public and social investment.

Grey power

The electoral weight grey voters exercise as their share of the electorate rises, amplified by their higher rates of turnout.

Gerontocracy

A democracy dominated by grey voters. Gerontocracy describes who holds electoral weight; gerontonomia describes the economic order that follows from it. On this account a gerontocracy leads to a gerontonomia.

Gerontonomia

γέρων + οἰκονομία

A stagnating political economy that increasingly prioritises the socioeconomic needs of the elderly, namely good pensions and low inflation, over a commitment to economic growth and high employment, at the expense of future economic performance.

Coined in The Political Quarterly, 2023. Described there as widespread across advanced democracies, including most of western Europe, the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan.

Democratically sustained economic stagnation

Low growth that persists because the policies producing it remain electorally viable, rather than because governments have failed to identify better ones.

Vlandas describes this equilibrium as unstable: it risks unravelling the relationship between capitalism and democracy.

Electoral unaccountability

The constraint grey power places on governments in ageing democracies. A long-standing literature on economic voting holds that electorates penalise governments for poor economic performance. Where growth disappoints but pensions are protected and inflation is low, that penalty weakens.

Boundaries

What the argument does not claim.

—That older people are selfish. The mechanism runs through position in the economy, not character.
—That population ageing is undesirable. Vlandas describes the demographic transformation as one of the great successes of the twentieth century.
—That older voters set policy directly, or that any particular government will survive. The Conservatives lost the 2024 UK general election after fourteen years in office.
—That individual older voters behave in any particular way. The argument concerns aggregate electoral incentives.
—That the case is closed. Vlandas presents the concept as opening a research agenda.
—That it is a European phenomenon. The figures on this site are drawn from Eurostat, but the argument is made for advanced capitalist democracies generally, and the 2026 evidence covers twenty-one of them.

Sources

Where these definitions come from.

Papers

Comparative Political Studies, 2018Vlandas, T. Grey Power and the Economy: Aging and Inflation Across Advanced Economies. 51(4), 514–552. The evidence behind grey power and inflation aversion.
doi.org/10.1177/0010414017710261
Political Research Exchange, 2021Vlandas, T., McArthur, D. and Ganslmeier, M. Ageing and the Economy: A Literature Review of Political and Policy Mechanisms. 3(1), 1932532. The evidence behind the account of grey voters’ preferences. Open access.
doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2021.1932532
The Political Quarterly, 2023Vlandas, T. From Gerontocracy to Gerontonomia: The Politics of Economic Stagnation in Ageing Democracies. 94(3), 452–461. Where the term is defined. Open access.
doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13301
World Politics, 2026Vlandas, T. Aging Advanced Capitalist Democracies: The New Electoral Politics of Economic Stagnation. 78(1), 48–90.
doi.org/10.1353/wp.2026.a980470

Read without a subscription

Summary of the argumentThe Political Quarterly digested read, in the author’s own words.
politicalquarterly.org.uk
Repository copyOxford Research Archive, full text of the 2023 article.
ora.ox.ac.uk

Contact

EnquiriesTim Vlandas, Department of Social Policy and Intervention, University of Oxford.