Abstract/Summary a Taking a long 60 year look at trends in pensionable age policy this chapter places current policy initiatives in a broader context and considers how the different policies in the U.S. and Eu15 countries have impacted on labour supply and participation of older people and how recent policies currently being phased-in are projected to impact during the next 50 years a We argue that the substantial gap between the participation rates on the two continents developing until the mid 1990s can largely be explained by differences in retirement age policy and that the much stronger increase in participation in EU15 vis-a-vis the U.S. during the past 15 years is one of the fruits of the new policies that have been adopted o Indeed, projections of the impact of retirement age reform discussed in the chapter indicates that in future we can expect eu15 countries to have higher participation rates for older people than the United States, thereby turning the pattern of the past forty years on its head U N I KASSEL VER SIT AT3 Abstract / Summary  Taking a long 60 year look at trends in pensionable age policy this chapter places current policy initiatives in a broader context and considers how the different policies in the U.S. and EU15 countries have impacted on labour supply and participation of older people and how recent policies currently being phased-in are projected to impact during the next 50 years.  We argue that the substantial gap between the participation rates on the two continents developing until the mid 1990s can largely be explained by differences in retirement age policy and that the much stronger increase in participation in EU15 vis-à-vis the U.S. during the past 15 years is one of the fruits of the new policies that have been adopted.  Indeed, projections of the impact of retirement age reform discussed in the chapter indicates that in future we can expect EU15 countries to have higher participation rates for older people than the United States, thereby turning the pattern of the past forty years on its head