Determinants of Prejudice Towards the Elderly in Europe

Has the society of developed countries adapted to the growing pace of ageism? This is worth answering because according to the UN report “World Population Ageing” (2015) the modern world, especially European countries, has faced the increase in the proportion of old people (due to fertility decline) as well as the issue of intolerant attitude to old people. I suppose that developed European countries have not been accustomed to ageism yet because of certain cultural and socio-demographic characteristics. To answer this question, I will use data from the European Social Survey 4th Module (56752 respondents from 29 countries) and with the help of multilevel regression determine the relationship between overall attitude towards people over 70s and individual and country level characteristics. If the hypothesis is correct then the average attitude to older generation in developed European countries is lower/worse than in less developed. Empirically, I find that in countries with bigger GDP per capita there is a bigger difference in attitude towards old people between people with higher and lower income. This finding implies the need for a program helping the European population to keep up with a demographic and social change.