Demographic aging is a global challenge with significant social policy implications. This book explores these implications, with a particular focus on the pressures and prospects for aging societies in the context of austerity. Ageing through Austerity presents a carefully crafted study of aging in Ireland, a nation that transitioned from Celtic Tiger to bail-out state as one of the countries hardest hit by the Eurozone financial crisis. Providing a close, critical analysis of aging and social policy that draws directly on the perspectives of older people, this book makes significant advances in framing alternatives to austerity-driven government policy and neoliberalism, giving a refreshing interdisciplinary account of contemporary aging.