Misconceptions and misapprehensions about population ageing

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Abstract
The last decade has seen the emergence of neo-liberal policies and agendas, and a parallel dismantling of the public provision of health and social services and programmes in most western countries. This neo-liberalism represents an endorsement of, or at the very least an accommodation to, the primacy of the individual and his/her efforts to ensure his/her own well-being, and a corresponding de-emphasis of conceptualizations of, and commitments to, shared risk, rights of citizenship, and the common good. Population ageing has played a fundamental role in this transition; the public costs of population ageing—particularly regarding health care and pensions—are purported to be unsustainable without considerable welfare state ‘reform’. Reform is of course a process, and it has taken differing shapes in various western countries. I focus on North America, and particularly Canada, examining the links between reform and (mis)perceptions about population ageing, concentrating on the latter.