AGEING SOCIETIES

Sarah Harper

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781134655489
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Demographic ageing is a reality - within 25 years half the population of Western Europe will be over 50, one quarter over 65, and the Less Developed Countries will contain one billion elderly people. Ageing Societies examines the myths, challenges and opportunities behind these figures. Ageing Societies explores three areas: § the growing necessity for extending economic activity into later life and the implications of societal ageing for the intergenerational contract and the provision of social security § the changes in modern families and the implications the changes have for the provision of support and care for the ageing population § the biggest demographic challenge of all: ageing in the Less Developed Countries where there is little or no infrastructure to provide long-term care or social security.Combining bio-demography, sociology, economics and development studies, Ageing Societies highlights the opportunities of an ageing population for a mature society. Age-integrated and flexible workforces, increased labour mobility, intergenerational integration, age equality and politically stable age-integrated societies are the potential benefits of a demography which will be with us for the majority of this century.

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Ageing societies

DOI: 10.4324/9780203783696-1

Demographic ageing is a reality. Most Western-style countries have aged continuously over the past century, the measure of ageing being an increase in the percentage of those over 60 years, and a decrease in those under 15 years. By 2030 half the population of Western Europe will be aged over 50, with a predicted average life expectancy at age 50 of a further 40 years, that is half Western Europe’s population will be between 50 and 100 years of age. One quarter of this population will be over 65, 15 per cent over 75. Indeed, it has been suggested that half of all baby girls born in the West today will live into the next century, approaching a predicted 5 million centenarians within Western Europe alone. Yet, already two-thirds of the world’s older population live in developing countries, with the absolute numbers of older people in these regions estimated to double to reach some 900 million within 25 years. In 45 years time, well within the predicted lifespan of many of this book’s readers, there will exist 2 billion older people. ¹ Of course, many of us reading this book will be part of that 2 billion. Something we sometimes overlook. We – hopefully – are tomorrow’s elderly population.

The power behind this demographic change is a combination of a decline in the numbers of children being born with a lengthening of life of those already born. This process is set to spread throughout the world this century, with increasingly ageing populations, until equilibrium is reached as we approach the twenty-second century, when a more balanced profile will, it is predicted, emerge and be maintained. This is truly something to aspire to. For a society to have achieved a long and healthy lifespan, with a high probability that most individuals born will live to achieve the natural human lifespan in good health, and with limited frailty, must surely be a major achievement of civilisation. Indeed, to have achieved this throughout the world would surely be the achievement of civilisation. For then we would have also conquered poverty, disease, famine and war throughout the world – these still being the major killers for most people.

Society's view of ageing

The common public concept of ‘ageing’ has been one of an increased requirement to provide health and social service delivery to older people. Yet demographic change will also have significant implications for labour supply, family and household structure, health and welfare service demand, patterns of saving and consumption, provision of housing and transport, leisure and community behaviour, networks and social interaction, and even, it has been suggested, the geopolitical order of the new century. However, as governments and policy makers have become aware of the implications of population ageing, so the demographic burden hypothesis has spread. Public rhetoric in many Western countries at the turn of the century, perpetuated by media dramatisation, has focused on four pervasive myths in particular:

• Health services thoughout the Western world are collapsing under the strain of growing numbers of older people.
• The dependency ratio, that is workers to non-workers, will become so acute that the economies of many western countries will collapse.
• We are all going to live in loose, multigenerational families which will face increasing emotional strain as large numbers of older people become reliant on decreasing numbers of children to care for them in their dependent old age.
• Ageing is a feature of the developed world, and has little relevance for developing countries.

However, these problem laden scenarios are in fact myths. It is not ageing populations that are the main explanatory factor for pressure on health care services, rather the wider effects of income, lifestyle characteristics and new technology. Similarly, the forecast dependency ratio is not due so much to the presence of large numbers of older people who are unable to work because of their age, but labour markets which have used retirement as a regulating mechanism in times of labour over-supply, and pension systems which have allowed healthy active individuals to withdraw from economic activity. We may be seeing an increase in alternative family structures, and the widespread provision of public forms of care, but there is little evidence that kin do not continue to ensure that their family members are cared for and supported. Indeed, the ageing of the developing world is the real demographic challenge, which will face one billion older adults within 30 years, with little or no infrastructure to provide long-term care, or public social security.

This is not to suggest that there are not challenges ahead as we adjust to a more mature society. There is a growing necessity for extending economic activity into later life, and for rethinking the mechanisms of the intergenerational contract and provision of social security; health care systems throughout the world will need to adjust to a reduction in acute diseases and infant and child-related medicine and increase in noncommunicable disease and long-term care; the bastion of institutionalised age discrimination needs to be tackled; and the reality of the experience of disease and disability at the very end of a normal lifespan acknowledged and appropriate social care and support frameworks established. However, there are also real opportunities presented by a mature society – age-integrated flexible workforces, intergenerational integration, age equality, and politically stable, age-integrated societies are all potential benefits of a demography which will be with us but for a short time this century.

The following thus provides an overview of the main theories, arguments and debate over societal ageing. The study of population ageing has burgeoned considerably over the past decade, with the recognition by mainstream economists, sociologists and demographers that this will have significant implications for their area of research. The discussion aims to synthesise the prevailing debate in each of the areas concerned, and to indicate specialist texts that will enable the reader to explore the issues in more depth.

We also consider the dynamics of falling fertility and mortality, the drivers behind population ageing, before turning to examine the concepts of age and ageing. Drawing on ideas from biodemography, the biological determinants behind ever increasing longevity are explored. The concept of age is also examined. This is identified as an indicator, as opposed to a determinant, of biological and psychological changes, and yet remains a social determinant of individuals’ allocated roles, independent of their biological or psychological capacity. Age also has analytical value as a descriptive variable, and it identifies at any given time birth-cohort membership, and thus potential life-shared cohort experiences. In addition, the intersection of age with gender, race and class is producing specific life experiences for men and women across the life course.

An ageing world

The population ageing experienced in the developed countries of the world in the twentieth century – and particularly the latter half of that century – is unprecedented in demographic history, and furthermore the trend is expected to continue well into the twenty-first century. Demographically, age 60 or 65 is taken to represent old age, those under age 15 are generally taken as young. (Though, as we shall see later in Chapter 3, such chronological ages have little reality.) In global terms, only 8 per cent of the population was aged 60 years and over in 1950. This had increased to just 10 per cent by the end of the century but is expected to increase even further to 22 per cent by the year 2050 ² by which time globally the number of older people will outnumber the number of young people. At the turn of the twenty-first century, there were approximately 610 million people aged 60 and over in the world corresponding to almost three times the number in 1950, and by 2050 the absolute figure is expected to reach 2 billion, more than a tripling over just 50 years. There will be an even more marked increase in the number of people aged 80 years and over, namely from 70 million to a staggering 394 million in the year 2050.

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Table Of Contents
• Ageing Societies
• Ageing Societies
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Ageing societies
• 2 The dynamics of population ageing
• 3 Understanding age and ageing
• 4 Retirement
• 5 Intergenerational contract and social security
• 6 Changing families
• 7 Intergenerational relationships and family care
• 8 Late life economic security in developing countries
• 9 Supporting families and elder care in developing countries
• 10 Equal treatment, equal rights
• 11 Mature societies
• Bibliography
• Index