Europe Growing Old

Europe Growing Old explains how the continent's aging population, rising public debt, and sluggish growth are reshaping politics, budgets, and long-term economic prospects. Drawing on a journalistic lens, Nathaniel Crowe shows why Europe's demographic shift is more than a statistical trend: it is a structural change that is altering the balance between workers and retirees, tightening fiscal choices, and testing institutions built for a younger era. The book traces the postwar baby boom's long shadow, the decline in birth rates across regions, and the limits of immigration as a partial offset to demographic decline. It also examines how debt and slower productivity growth interact to narrow policy options. Clear, timely, and grounded in the forces driving modern Europe, this book helps readers understand why the continent's next era will be shaped by aging, scarcity, and difficult tradeoffs.