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An Ageing World: The Equivocal Response

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Eric Midwinter
Eric Midwinter
Affiliation:
Director, Centre for Policy on Ageing, 25–31 Ironmonger Row, London kinds of informal social props.
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Extract

Old age as a macro-issue was forcibly thrust upon the staff of the Centre for Policy on Ageing recently, when we intrepidly embarked on the first detailed and comprehensive review, statistical and critical, of old age as a worldwide theme. In embarking on such a venture we were well aware that thirty, even twenty, years ago it would scarcely have been tenable, for the touchstone of old age as some form of specific discipline or subject has barely existed for half a century in the so-called ‘developed’ societies, let alone in the vast remainder of the world. Now many countries have services, ministries, institutes or organisations devoted to the topic of old age. This may, of course, be the consequence of living in a bureaucratic epoch in which services, ministries, institutes or organisations have been devoted to practically any subject under the sun, but there must be some fire gently glowing beneath the billowing smoke.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , June 1990 , pp. 221 - 228
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

NOTES

1 Centre for Policy on Ageing, CPA World Directory of Old Age. Longman International Reference, London, 1989.Google Scholar

2 Cipolla, C. M., The Economic History of World Population. London, 1962.Google Scholar

3 The table, and the figures quoted hereafter, are taken from CPA World Directory, which derives from World Population Prospects. United Nations, New York, 1986.

4 Laslett, P., A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age. London, 1979.Google Scholar

5 Read, D., England 1868–1914: the Age of Urban Democracy. London, 1979.Google Scholar

6 Midwinter, E., The Wage of Retirement: the Case for a New Pensions Policy, p. 25. CPA, London, 1985.Google Scholar

7 Finer, H., The Theory and Practice of Modern Government. New York, 1950.Google Scholar

8 Minois, G., A History of Old Age: from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Oxford, 1989. (Translated by Sarah Hanbury Tenison.)Google Scholar

9 For instance, Midwinter, E., Protective custody. Journal of Community Education, i (4) (1982).Google Scholar

10 CPA World Directory.

11 Minois, G., op. cit.Google Scholar

12 Laslett, P., op. cit.Google Scholar

13 Central Statistical Office, Annual Abstract of Statistics, no. 125. HMSO, London, 1989.Google Scholar

14 Plath, D., ‘The wizard of pilgrimage, or what colour is our brick road?’ In Cole, T. R. and Gadow, S. A. (eds), What Does it Mean to Grow Old? Reflections from the Humanities. United States, 1986.Google Scholar