老人支配国 Gerontocracy？

記事
西村博之2015年05月18日 06:10嫌なら出ていくしかない、この国から。

これはちょっと極端。どこの国にも少数者はいるが、この論理だと、少数者はその国から出て行くしかないことになる。

しかも、他の国に行ってもましとは限らない。



橋下市長の敗因が「シルバーデモクラシー」ではない件について。
投稿日: 2015年05月18日 13時14分 JST 更新: 2015年05月18日 13時14分 JST

ワカモノの定義は人によって異なると思うが、ここでは一旦20代、30代、40代をワカモノとして定義する。この年代の人口は、合計で111.3万人。有権者全体に占める割合を計算すると48.96％と、ほぼ半数だ。

４０代もワカモノにいれてしまうのはなんだかな、という気もするが・・・

反対派が自分の意見を投票する事も、高齢者がワカモノより投票に行くことも、何ら問題のある行動ではない。

ワカモノよりも高齢者の方が投票所に行く率が高い、というわけですね。


この問題は実は、わりに昔からアメリカの社会問題になっていて、ニュースにされていた記憶がある。
そこで、ちょっとググって何本かの記事をチラミしてみると、



Why Older Citizens are More Likely to Vote
Retirees have valuable government benefits to protect.

By Emily Brandon March 19, 2012 | 9:25 a.m. EDT

Some 61 percent of citizens age 65 and older voted in the November 2010 election, the best turnout of any age group. More than half (54 percent) of those ages 55 to 64 also cast a ballot. People under age 45 are much less likely to vote. Just 37 percent of 25- to 44-year-olds made it to the polls in November 2010. And not even a quarter (21 percent) of the youngest citizens—ages 18 to 24—entered a voting booth in 2010. Here's a look at some of the reasons senior citizens are more likely to vote than younger people.

[See States with the Best Older Voter Turnout.]

Protect Social Security and Medicare. Senior citizens have a vested interest in protecting the valuable benefits they receive from the federal government. "A lot of the benefits of our government go to older people," says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University and author of Governing America: The Revival of Political History. "If you look at the major domestic benefit programs, from Medicare to Social Security to Medicaid, the older people just have a greater interest in voting than younger people who don't see the same benefits."

　アメリカでも、高齢者の投票率というは、若者にくらべて高いんですね。それは、社会福祉など自分たちが恩恵をこうむっている利益を守る必要があるから、とも言われている。





Trends and statistics relating to U.S. seniors, elderly: Census Bureau 2014 report

Tags: aging, mental health | Last updated: August 5, 2014

Trends and statistics relating to U.S. seniors, elderly: Census Bureau 2014 report

Tags: aging, mental health | Last updated: August 5, 2014


Research Findings Media/Analysis Tips
Arranging flowers (dhhs.nh.gov)
(dhhs.nh.gov)
As senior citizens make up an ever-greater proportion of the U.S. population, a range of economic and social shifts will unfold and change American society.

高齢化社会になってくると、社会経済政策も変わっていかなくてはならない。


Elderly Influence
the price of an american gerontocracy
BY AMANDA GUTTERMAN | SEPTEMBER 27, 1:21AM


gerontocracy

1【不可算名詞】 老人支配[政治].
2【可算名詞】 老人支配国[政府].

Highly politicized challenges to Social Security, like the one we pose implicitly by publishing a “dependency ratio,” are nothing new. Since the ’80s, when the population boom of the elderly was first noticeable, demographers have been wondering whether Social Security could be sustained in spite of the falling birthrate. On the bright side, they imagined, the falling birthrate would lead to improving conditions for children because there would be less competition for resources in the home. Unfortunately, this prediction did not materialize. According to a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the president of the Population Association of America announced in 1984 that “exactly the opposite had occurred: conditions for children had, in fact, deteriorated while they improved dramatically for older Americans.” The CRS concluded that the aging population, rather than a boon, had become a threat to “intergenerational equity,” a term for the philosophical question of how to allocate resources along generational lines. Older adults, after all, are also in competition for their share of the federal budget. In recent years, this sector of the population has favored candidates who propose cuts in education spending. Dr. Fried points out what was once considered the success of modern medicine—that nearly half the world will be over sixty-five by 2050—has paradoxically come to be treated as a problem.




Environmental issues also have no hold on older voters. History professor Alan Brinkley explains how environmental politics has weakened in recent years, partly due to the indifference of older voters, who “don’t think it will make a difference to them in their lifetimes.”

老人票が強くなってくると、自分たちには関係ないからということで、若い人向けの教育に費やす費用は、削減され、また、自分たちの時代には関係ないからといって環境問題も軽視されるようになるわけですね。

I ask Professor Gelman what a gerontocracy—a government by the old—would look like. He laughs, “It’s already happening!” Part of what guarantees older adults a disproportionate impact on elections, even with their startling numbers, is younger people’s choice not to vote. Often, we blame apathy or indolence for their low turnout. New Republic reporter Cheryl Russell writes, “Young adults do not vote because many are still—in a sense—children, without adult commitments or responsibilities. The data suggest that three factors consistently make a difference in voting rates: money, marriage, and homeownership. Those are the adult commitments that give people a stake in society.” Her critique is harsh, with its implication that young voters think they are children. As a result of their lack of responsibility, Russell implies, younger people willingly recuse themselves from political activity, or in other words, leave it for the grownups to handle.

Professor Gelman does not exactly agree, and he might even find Russell’s magical “three factors” more correlative than explanatory. “Older people vote at a higher rate than young people,” he says, “and that’s attributed to the difficulty of getting registered to vote and figuring out where to vote. When people move to a new place, voter turnout goes down a lot, so when people have been living somewhere for a while, they know where to vote.” In his opinion, young people do not vote because we are dislocated and pressed for time—not, thankfully, because we are child-like.　　

若者は、金もない、結婚もしてない、家ももっていないから、責任感がなくなり、投票所に行かないのだ、という意見もある。いや、そうじゃない、投票するための登録が面倒だからだ、とか、仕事などで忙しいからだ、という意見の人もいる。いずれにせよ、

Young people, we hear every day, are having trouble finding work. One of the factors that contributes to this difficulty is that older adults are not leaving their jobs, not making the necessary generational transfers.

高齢者が職場に居ついてでていってくれないから、若い人が労働市場に入ってこれない。

It is easy to forget, when older people consistently advocate against our interests, how many of them have been victims of Hurricane Katrina or the foreclosure crisis, how many of them worked hard their whole lives only to die impoverished. And it is easy to become bitter. In one such feat of bitterness, columnistDavid Brooks wrote in a recent op-ed, “You could say that America is spending way too much on health care for the elderly and way too little on young families and investments in the future.” The implication here is that we should make Romney-style cuts on health care spending for the elderly, to which even the right- leaning Conference of Catholic Bishops objected, saying that the cuts would constitute cruelty. In his column, Brooks draws a false binary: A Survivor-themed scenario in which a single group makes it off the island. Looking to the future, Professor Shapiro says, “Realistically, it would have to be a world of higher taxes, not the policies the old want today. And if you want to play it out to its logical conclusion, if the birthrate continues to go down, the one solution would be more immigrants.” Reasonable policy changes, not reckless social cuts, are the way of the future.

老害とか世代間格差などといことが言われると、災害にあった老人や、抵当権で家を没収された老人、あるいは、汗水たらして働いきても貧困状態にある老人たちのことをわすれて、老人のために健康保険の費用が費やされすぎている、などと高齢世代につらく当たる人がでてくるが、そうして、老齢世代　対　若者世代に分断するのは、間違っている、と。現実的には、歳費削減ではなく、高齢者は嫌がるかもしれないが、税金を挙げて、出生率低下を補うために移民をもっと受け入れることべきであろう、と。

、

アメリカなんかだと、AARPといって、年金生活者のためのロビー団体があるんですね。これがわりに影響力をもっているわけですが、

The Two Faces of ‘Gray Power’:
Elderly Voters, Elderly Lobbies and the Politics of Welfare Reform
July 2002

ABSTRACT
Many observers agree that the elderly have an important influence on the politics of the
welfare state. But the literature on welfare states and interest groups is unclear about the
precise nature of that influence. In particular, theory fails to distinguish rigorously
between elderly voters and organized elderly lobbies as actors in welfare state politics.
This paper argues that the relative influence of elderly groups and elderly voters matters
because their political preferences are not completely congruent. Our research in Italy
and the US shows that elderly voters and elderly advocacy groups have distinct
preferences regarding welfare reform. While elderly voters hold opinions consonant with
their personal self-interest, elderly advocacy groups tend to make more moderate welfare
state demands on behalf of the elderly. Our research suggests that attempts to limit
welfare state growth by marginalizing powerful elderly advocacy groups may in fact
result in more exaggerated demands on pension systems.

しかし、こうした団体の方が、個々の個人の老人たちよりも、政策的には穏健な政策をとるので、こうした団体を疎んじるとかえって、もっと負担のかかる年金制度を選択しなくてはならなくなる、と。


で、




DEC
3
PAST EVENT
Is Japan a Silver Democracy? Demographics, Politics, and Policy Choices for the 21st Century
December 3, 2014



JAPAN-2014/12/03
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THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION
IS JAPAN A SILVER DEMOCRACY?
DEMOGRAPHICS, POLITICS, AND POLICY CHOICES FOR THE 21st CENTURY
Washington, D.C.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014

これは、日本の”シルバーデモクラシー”についてのフォーラム

How does this compare with the United States? The numbers for the
oldest cohorts are not that different. The United States Census Bureau data shows that
the turnout rates for 65 and older Americans is 72 percent. So, if you take these -- you
know, the older cohorts over 65 include the -- some people who are turning out at 77 in
Japan and then some people who are over 80 who are turning out at lower rates, so we
don’t have exactly comparable data broken down by age, but it’s roughly the same
turnout rates for older voters in the United States and in Japan.
For younger voters, the rate is substantially lower in Japan than it has
been for the American young people in the last couple of elections. In 2012 U.S.
election, the 18 to 24 year olds turned out at the rate of 50 percent of the eligible voters --
50 percent instead of 35 -- I’m sorry, that was 45 percent in 2012, 50 percent in 2008, so
you may remember that in Obama’s first victory, the young people were particularly
enthusiastic and turned out in unusually high numbers, so that was 50 percent. Even in
the second election it was 45 percent.

投票率をみると、高齢者の投票率の高さというのは、アメリカも日本も変わらないが、アメリカの場合、若者の投票率が日本よりちといいわけですね。

ただ、先の記事にもあったように、アメリカでも老人支配というのが問題になっているところは銘記すべき。

This is from
(inaudible) 2006 and it shows that Japan spends 42 times more money on elderly citizens
to non-elderly citizens and actually United States comes second. So, United States, its
average between 1985 to 2000, but United States spends 38 times more money to --
more money on elderly citizens to non-elderly citizens.

日本はワカモノよりも老人に、４２倍、アメリカは３８倍も予算を費やしている、と。

But just quickly to summarize what I mean by these three elements.
First, in terms of number, as you can see from the bar graphs here -- I’m sorry it’s largely
in Japanese -- in the bar graph here, this is a total population of Japanese in 2010
divided according to the age cohorts and as you can see from here, the current youth
people between the age of 21 to 29 is about 13.5 million as compared to people over the
age of 60, which is now 35 million.
So, very quickly you know that from the numerical point of view, young
people -- and here I’m talking primarily about people in their 20s, and maybe perhaps
early 30s -- they are much smarter sort of population group numerically compared to
people over the age of 60.
So, in terms of number, my argument is that youth voter population is
small in comparison to the elder voter population and because of this, that youth votes
from the youth point of view feels powerless, and from the politician’s point of view, less
significant in terms of electoral politics

若者は影響力がないので、無力感を感じて、投票に行かないのではないか、という分析ですね。

Compare that to the U.S., 61 concerned or somewhat concerned and 39
not concerned or somewhat not concerned, and so, well, and so you could see that
young people in Japan are actually quite concerned about their future.

若者だって将来には関心がある。

So, another question about whether youth thinks that it’s possible to
change society through their participation, only 30 percent of Japanese youth thought
that they could change society through participation, 51 percent did not think so, as
compared to the U.S., more than 50 percent really thought -- 52 percent thought that they
could change society through their participation.　

が、日本の若者は、将来を変えられるとは思っていない。ーーーアメリカの若者は幻想をもてるのかもしれない。

In terms of their satisfactions towards their country and society,
Japanese youth was least satisfied of them all -- of the seven countries. Well, actually,
France was just as -- French youth are just as unsatisfied as Japanese youth. Again,
compared to the American youth, American youth were more or less equal in terms of
satisfaction and answered dissatisfaction.

日本の若者はなんと、おフランスの若者と同程度しか満足感がないーーーこれはひどいのか、アメリカの若者が満足しすぎるのか？

So, my last sort of point about opportunities is that I think Japanese
youth are not engaging not just because they are numerically small and that they are less
engaged, they feel that the politicians are not listening to their needs, but also in terms of
the opportunities, I think they are much more concerned about something else, which is
employment and the issue of high unemployment and it’s because the youth in their 20s
really have to keep their heads down in order to find jobs and I think it’s that that is

putting them -- taking them out of sort of political engagement.

日本の若者は、政治家たちが、自分たちに耳を傾けてくれていないとおもっているし、就職のためには、政治に参加すべきではない、と思っているのではないか、と。



ーーーーー

いずれにせよ、

１）日本独自論にするのはいかがなものか？
２）老人対若者　の構図で国民を分断するより、富裕層　対　貧困層　の構図から、政策選択できるような選挙にしていくほうが有益ではないか、
というのが私の印象。