gerontocracy

plural gerontocracies

1. countableuncountableGovernment by elders; government by elderly rulers.

   Near-synonyms: senilocracy, graocracy (archaic)

   4 more examples

   It would come as no surprise to find that optimum science policy is apt to be developed neither by gerontocracy nor by juvenocracy but, like the community of scientists itself, by age-diversified meritocracy.

   1972, Harriet Zuckerman, Robert K. Merton, “Age, Aging, and Age Structure in Science”, in Matilda White Riley, Marilyn Johnson, Anne Foner, Aging and Society, volume 3 (A Sociology of Age Stratification), New York, N.Y.: Russell Sage Foundation, →ISBN, page 337

   But in his 1996 novel, Holy Fire, [Bruce] Sterling imagines a rather different future: a world ruled by an all-powerful gerontocracy, which appropriates most of the world's wealth to pay for ever more costly life-extension techniques.

   1997 March 9, Paul Krugman, “Does Getting Old Cost Society Too Much?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 03 Jan 2024

   Young people who are close to writing off the Democratic Party as a dinosaur, as a gerontocracy of prudish abuelos who gave birth by immaculate conception, may be in for a pleasant surprise.

   2017 April 3, Dr A W Niloc, “Resistance Songs for Day 75 - Sex Appeal”, in Daily Kos

   He [Koizumi] was what would pass for a political maverick among Japan's faceless gray gerontocracy.

   2018, Mikiso Hane, Modern Japan: A Historical Survey, 5th edition, Routledge, →ISBN

   Synonyms: senilocracy, graocracy · Antonyms: juvenocracy