I introduce the theoretical approach of ‘ageing policy’ in the article. This approach is based on the interaction of three policy fields in the framing of social inequality and poverty of older people. Besides pension policy and long-term care policy it also includes social assistance policy, since it is argued that all three have a high relevance for the role of welfare state policies for the risk of poverty in old age. In addition, I also develop a typology of different types of ageing policy for aging policies that is based on different ways in which ageing policy impact on potential poverty of senior citizens. On the basis of this theoretical framework I develop the main hypotheses.
In the empirical part I introduce the findings of a cross-national comparative study on the potential impact of different types of aging policies for poverty of senior citizens in European welfare states, and analyse how the different types of ageing policy are linked with different types of welfare states. The interaction of ageing policy is analyzed by their generosity level and their impacts on preventing potential poverty will be included. It will also be analysed how each policy field compensate with each other.
The paper offers a new, complex theoretical framework for comparative analysis about the role of welfare state policies for poverty of senior citizens.
