The last attempt at a truce, brokered by Mr Abbas in 2003, quickly collapsed into a cycle of attack and counter-attack.

ECONOMIST: Abbas wins a popular mandate | The

One possible counter-argument is that this correlation may simply show that different economies are at different stages of the cycle: when an economy is growing strongly, employment rates for both the old and the young are likely to be high.

ECONOMIST: Why the old should not make way for the young