Old versus young: How much do countries spend on social benefits? Deterministic modeling for government expenditure

The increasing levels of population ageing have led to debates questioning the spending hierarchy granted by governments to social benefts. In this article, we use a Lotka–Voltera competition model based on diferential equations to investigate the relationships between old age pensions, family/children benefts, sickness/health care, and unemployment benefts. The analysis focuses on Austria, Germany, and Switzerland between 2007 and 2018 with the aim of better understanding whether and when priority is given to benefts in favour of the older versus younger cohorts of the population. Findings for the Germanspeaking European triangle show that an intergenerational confict is signifcantly present
in government expenditure. In particular, old age pensions and family and children benefts mostly interact in a predator–prey relationship that favours old age pensions, while expenditure for sickness and health care predominates the scenario