This article starts from the hypothesis that private expenditure on home ownership and public expenditure on aged pensions represent alternative and, to some extent, mutually exclusive mechanisms of life-time saving for old age. The paper identifies Greece, Italy and, to a lesser degree, Spain as being amongst the only advanced nations in which home ownership is extensive and social insurance age pensions extremely generous. The paper goes on to identify features of southern European society which make it possible to combine these features, but points to the fiscal and demographic problems that result from a policy-mix which privileges the old at the expense of the young.