ABSTRACT

The age structure of asociety has long been ahot topic in public administration, including in local government, where such discussion should, at the most obvious level, promote policies related to active ageing and the protection of the elderly. Ageing is asignificant issue in Portugal, putting pressure on local and central governments. Whether the population's aging is adeterminant of local government's overall performance is aquestion that finds few answers in the literature. Our results suggest that there is only atenuous relationship between ageing and some dimensions of council performance, particularly socio-economic development and financial sustainability. In life as awhole, ageing is seen as detrimental to performance; but it explains no more than atenth of the variance in councils' performance. Thus, individual councils may provide services efficiently regardless of the age structure of their communities. There are far more important dimensions for explaining performance by local government than ageing.

摘要

协会的年龄结构一直是包括地方政府在内的公共行政领域的热门话题，这种讨论应在最明显的层面上促进与积极衰老和保护老年人有关的政策。在葡萄牙，老龄化是一个重大问题，给地方和中央政府带来压力。人口老龄化是否决定着地方政府的整体绩效，是一个在文献中找不到答案的问题。我们的结果表明，老龄化与理事会绩效的某些方面（尤其是社会经济发展和财务可持续性）之间只有紧密的联系。在整个生命中，衰老被视为对性能的不利影响。但它只解释了议会绩效差异的十分之一。因此，各个理事会可能会有效地提供服务，而不论其社区的年龄结构如何。在解释地方政府的绩效方面，还有比陈年更重要的方面。