Examines the supposed threat to the future trajectory of social spending posed by population ageing. An initial focus is on the contrast between the sense of crisis characterizing popular and governmental accounts with the more measured analysis of demographers and economists. Later sections examine a variety of welfare state programmes for the old and show that expenditure trajectories are only marginallyinfluenced by demographic considerations, but that what really influences expenditure outcomes is the differential generosity of pension provision in different families of nations. Differential generosity is also shown to be a further factor influencing aggregate patterns of social expenditure.
Keywords: age pensions, demographic crisis, pension generosity, pension reform, pensions expenditure, population ageing, retirement crisis, social expenditure,