Ageing Through Austerity ― Critical Perspectives from Ireland

Demographic aging is a global challenge with significant social policy implications. This book explores these implications, with a particular focus on the pressures and prospects for aging societies in the context of austerity.

Ageing through Austerity presents a carefully crafted study of aging in Ireland, a nation that transitioned from Celtic Tiger to bail-out state as one of the countries hardest hit by the Eurozone financial crisis. Providing a close, critical analysis of aging and social policy that draws directly on the perspectives of older people, this book makes significant advances in framing alternatives to austerity-driven government policy and neoliberalism, giving a refreshing interdisciplinary account of contemporary aging.

Keiran Walsh is a senior research fellow at Project Lifecourse and deputy director of the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, National University of Ireland Galway.Gemma Carney is a lecturer in social policy and ageing at the School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queen’s University Belfast.Aine Ni Leime is a Marie-Curie Fellow and researcher at Project Lifecourse and the Irish Centre for Social Gerontology, National University of Ireland, Galway.