Introduction

Those in maturity at ages 40-59 are shown, below left, to constitute between a little more than an eighth and up to almost a third of the population, depending on where you look. When reading what follows and viewing each map, it also helps to try to remember where this age group is most and least common. In dramatic contrast to their younger peers, the centre of London, and to a lesser extent, Birmingham, are now an anathema to the 40-59 age group who in many cases crowded so willingly into the capital just a decade or two earlier. Now they are beginning to turn their backs on the bright lights and cluster most densely out of the city limits.

Years in between again, these older adult ages can be viewed either as the run-up to retirement – old age, the climacteric years – or as an extension of the new youthful midlife – the prime of life, the years in which many become free again of the responsibilities of being parents, the years when they have finally grown up, matured.

There is a great deal of sensitivity over the labelling, and exact demarcation, of this fifth stage of life, as with the last two that follow. For this reason, we have given these 20 years the label ‘maturity’. We have chosen to try where possible to concentrate on those aged between 40 and 59 as these are the final years in which the majority are expected to work. They are also the years by which most that will have children have had them, and, as with infanthood, and young adulthood before them, these are years of transition. The previous transitions were infancy (into childhood) and young adulthood (into midlife). These mature years are the years of transition towards early old age, to being young retired (and then truly elderly) and thus we call them ‘maturity’ from here on. They are also the years beyond which the human body is not well designed to live.