By Emily Lines
Awareness and political action to address an aging population in Germany have been slow to develop. Germany’s history with population policies and the use of research from the field of demography to justify the actions of the “Third Reich” created a unique situation where discussion of such issues was socially inacceptable. Additionally, the long-term nature of demographic projections made it easier for politicians to place the issue low on their agendas. Considering this damage caused to the academic field of demography and recognizing that policy makers, specifically politicians, often think in terms of legislative periods and not long-term, how did policy makers, researchers, and journalists in Germany react to and address the development of the aging German population? The leading hypothesis is that the discussion in Germany did not gain traction until politicians began to acknowledge the implications of aging within the context of a larger policy-related debate, such as pension or health care reform. Thereafter, population aging began to be viewed as a separate issue to be addressed. Documents from research, policy, and print media are collected from 1966-1997 to identify how aging was contextualized and how these groups influenced the spread of information. Realization that they could not continue to ignore the declining birth rate forced policy makers in the 1970s to pay attention, call for more research, and learn this decline was also causing the population to age. All three groups addressed aging throughout this entire period, but the announcement of the government’s intention to pursue pension reform in 1983 sparked an increase in interest. The passage of such a significant reform moved the issue to the foreground and by the 1990s, it was viewed more often as a standalone topic and not always secondary to a larger policy-related issue.