Steps towards
a Society for all ages
The idea of the society for all ages may be approached from many directions. The approach taken here is that of (a) the individual lifecourse and (b) the social milieu of family, neighbourhood, communities of interest and the macro-social environment.
Individual life and the social environment are being affected by demographic change. The nature and scope of demographic ageing will be explored, among other things, at the ICPD+5 in the year 1999. The following statistical snapshots demonstrate what is involved:
- Twenty years has been added to the average lifespan in the second half of the twentieth century. This life extension has been too recent and rapid to have been integrated into our concept of life as a unified whole, a progression of interrelated stages.
- Age structures of families are changing. The traditional pyramid of many youth and few elders is giving way to the inverse family pyramid of potentially one child, two parents, four grandparents and several great-grandparents. Two and more generations can be over age 60.
- The world is entering a millenium where soon a third of the population will be over age 60. Several of the more age-advanced countries will reach this proportion by 2030; the world as a whole by 2150.
- The tempo of ageing in developing countries is more rapid than in the developed ones, and their resources fewer. Already, the majority of older persons live in developing countries and this proportion will exceed 70 percent by the year 2030. Currently, every fifth person over age 60 is living in China.
- The older population itself is ageing. Today, about 10 percent of the population over age 60 is already in the age 80 and above category; this proportion will rise to 25 percent before the year 2050.
- The majority of older persons worldwide are women, constituting 55 percent of the over 60 age group, and 65 percent of the over 80 age group. And the majority of older persons live in urban areas (51 percent today and rising).
Individual and population ageing are interacting with technological and cultural evolution generating change and complexity. Within this increasingly ambiguous and interdependent environment, lives progress along many planes -- biological, psychological, societal, political, cultural and spiritual. The needs and rhythms of each of these aspects of human development vary as individuals move through childhood, youth, adulthood, midlife, and 'young' and 'old' old age. Each stage needs a supportive environment, built on indigenous systems, incorporating innovations. Finding a satisfactory synthesis of tradition and innovation in response to ageing is a particular challenge to developing economies as they simultaneously combat widespread poverty.
In all cultures, accumulated life experience can make late life a potential period of enrichment and fruition, even as it is also a time of decline and loss. The synthesis of these two factors -- fruition and loss -- is what gives late life its particular dynamic and its unique potential contribution of "wisdom" to society.
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