In 2011, the 'Baby Boom' generation will begin to retire. By then, the stark reality of the 'greying' of the population in North America and Western Europe will have brought the inadequacies of the state and private pension systems home to all levels of society, and the pension crisis will be actual rather than impending. In The Political Economy of Pensions, Richard Deaton explores the factors involved in this high-profile issue of public policy and shows the insufficiency of recent reform initiatives in Canada, the United States, and Britain. Four converging considerations explain the imminence of the pension crisis.

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Richard Lee Deaton is assistant director of research, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Ottawa.

This book is a major contribution to our understanding of the structural forces that shape pension policies in advanced capitalist societies. State, occupational, and private pension provisions reflect and reinforce the income inequalities of working age to a greater or lesser extent in all three countries -- Canada, USA and Britain -- covered by the study. Dr. Deaton has succeeded in using Marxist social theory to analyse the mass of data which he accumulated in his research and to show how market forces have influenced not only pension policies but public attitudes towards the elderly as well. The book is also a timely warning that unless radical changes are made to current pension policies, poverty among the elderly will inevitably continue in the foreseeable future. Social scientists are at their best when they use theory to illuminate events and processes in society and Dr. Deaton has achieved this task superbly.
- Vic George, Professor of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Kent at Canterbury

Pensions now occupy a strategic position in advanced market economies. This comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of pensions and ageing policy in Canada, Britain, and the U.S. is an important contribution to political economy. The author's rigorous analysis and provocative conclusions challenge the conventional thinking on the subject and show why pensions will be one of the critical political and social issues in the next thirty years.
- George Bain, Professor of Industrial and Business Studies, University of Warwick

The private pension industry and the gerontological establishment will hate this hard-hitting book. It is in the best tradition of political economy and offers progressives and trade unionists an important strategy for social change based on the pension system.
- Robert Sass, Former Associate Deputy Minister, Saskatchewan Labour

Using an explicitly Marxist political economy perspective, Deaton has made a unique and vitally important contribution to the understanding of social policy formation in the post-industrial state and the forces which shape its internal dynamic. This work should be seriously considered by anyone interested in social policy formation, the role of the state and capital in shaping policy and the western social welfare systems, no matter what the reader's personal perspective on the issues. The comparative element is a particularly strong contribution since it allows an analysis of issues based on both historical specificity and larger macro-level trends. It is destined to be a landmark piece on an issue of increasing importance for years to come.
- Carroll L. Estes, Director, Institute for Health and Aging, University of California, San Francisco