This book is about reconsidering how we understand and approach late life transitions as scholars, members of society and individuals. Transitions between events and experiences are threaded throughout the lifecourse and into late life. But the pathways through them are not always as straightforward or predictable as depicted in standard models. Some transitions are achieved with ease; others are more difficult, with the meanings of each varying according to context, expectations and circumstances. The models by which we understand and make sense of our lifecourse and our ageing exist and are enacted through socio-cultural, relational and personal processes. Yet, these models and the various ideals about ageing and the lifecourse are themselves shifting. What it means to age has changed in the contemporary context, with scholars and older people alike questioning and challenging the constructions of ‘growing old’.

This book takes a critical approach to reconsidering transitions in late life. It calls into question the assumptions about ageing and late life, including the models put forward by institutional and organisational practices. It focuses on the interface between academic understandings, socio-cultural discourses, public policy frameworks and lived experiences. Setting the narratives of older people against dominant understandings, it details the discrepancies that can exist between larger models and lived experience. It draws attention to how older people incorporate accepted notions of ageing into their experience, as well as develop innovative strategies to address late life concerns. As such, it points to extending understandings of transition from existing normative concepts of age and stage, into models that account for diverse and varied experiences that take place within and across socio-cultural contexts.

Ageing societies: changing contexts and transitions

In a contemporary context characterised by movement towards ‘ageing societies’, questions related to late-life transitions are key. The contemporary challenge of planning for ‘ageing societies’ has often been attributed to the shifting global demographic profile, with responses interpreted accordingly. The combined trends of declining fertility and mortality rates and increased migration have resulted in higher percentages of older people throughout most of the world, as well as greater diversity within the older population (United Nations, 2002a). However, the socio-cultural meanings and experiences of growing old that exist within and between these accounts often receive less attention, at least in public discourse.