Iceberg ahead: On electronic government research and societal aging

More than ten years ago, Peterson (1999, p. 3) warned that “[g]lobal aging, like a massive iceberg, looms ahead.” Government budgets have already been hit hard by a simultaneous increase in governmental spending and a decline in tax revenue related to a growing share of the elderly to the total population. While almost all industrialized countries can expect an aging population and resulting budget stress, the implications of the graying of society for a “graying of e-Government initiatives and budgets” are not readily apparent and therefore constitutes a subject worthy of investigation. Despite the increasing importance of this issue for e-Government in practice, there remains a clear need to assess our understanding and reflection of the phenomenon. Therefore, we examine (a) whether e-Government research presently provides adequate theory, vocabulary, and methods and (b) the extent to which future e-Government research is potentially able to contribute to tackling the substantial theoretical and practical challenges related to societal aging. Accordingly, we pursue a multi-method approach in terms of sequentially applying a retrospective literature review (12 journals, vol. 2000–2009) and a prospective Delphi study (involving 24 e-Government experts). The results suggest that there is currently a significant gap between actual and potential e-Government research on societal aging. We discuss the implications for future e-Government research and describe potentially fruitful ways of bridging the prevailing gap between theory and practice.