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Abstract

It almost sounds like a fairy tale. Once upon a time, there was a people living happily together. They went forth and reproduced, one generation caring for the next, the young caring for the old. But as time went by, for a mysterious reason unknown to the people, ever fewer babies were born. Gradually it dawned upon the people that this could imperil their happily ever after, so they decided to send their wise folks (those who possessed no other really useful craft, a.k.a. political scientists and economists) to an ivory tower to think about a solution for this problem…

Yet unlike in a fairy tale, magic beans or the miraculous deeds of a wizard will not help. The aging of societies in western democracies represents a massive economic and societal challenge.

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Correspondence to Oliver Pamp .

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© 2015 Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

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Pamp, O. (2015). Introduction. In: Political Preferences and the Aging of Populations. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-08615-2_1

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