[Review of the book The making of ageing policy : theory and practice in Europe, by R. Ervik & T. S. Linde]

Abstract

The Making of Ageing Policy demonstrates, as illustrated in Sara Arber’s blurb on the book back cover, ‘‘the pivotal role of ideas and international organizations in shaping the policy and practice landscape’’ of welfare reforms for older persons in Europe. The book drives the point that seemingly neutral terms, such as active ageing, are ultimately grounded in an economistic rationale whose overriding raison d’eˆtre is to making people extend their working lives. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong in such a policy direction, the fact that policy makers mask this ideological grounding in functionalist discourse of well-being should be a key point of deliberation in ‘‘critical’’ social policy analysis.