ABSTRACT
The notion of “active ageing” has become an integral part of European social policy agendas. However, the active ageing perspective has not been integrated into all European countries’ social policy agendas uniformly, and the remit of active ageing policy remains unclear. Combining insights on “ideas” with insights from active ageing and welfare state literature, this chapter analyses whether, and to what extent, the active ageing perspective informs pensions and eldercare reforms in Croatia. It shows that “active ageing” ideas have entered social policy debates; however, mainly as a part of a narrow, labour market-oriented framing of reforms bringing changes to the pension system that seek to extend working lives. In addition, this has been happening in the context of a collapsing economy and very low employment rates, making the pension system unstable in the long run. Gender equality arguments have not been central and have been typically purely instrumental, used either to “defend” features of the “old” system or argue for policy instruments that could serve employment-oriented or demographic goals.
