The ageing of modern societies: crisis or opportunity?

In all modern societies more people are living to later ages. This is widely seen as a crisis, imposing an increasing burden of costs due to the needs of older people for health and social care and pensions. This paper suggests a more optimistic perspective. It points out that in most higher income countries people are living longer but are also healthy and active later in life than ever before. The costs they impose on health services can be overstated. Consequently increasing numbers of them work, for pay or voluntarily, caring for others and reducing the public cost of services. It is often asserted that families care for older people less than in the past. This is also questionable. In the past, due to high death rates at younger ages, poverty and high migration rates, older people often did not have family support available. Now due to longer life expectancy, higher living standards and modern technology, older people may receive more family support than in the past. Later life is sad for many people. It always has been. But not for all. The older age group is highly diverse.En todas las sociedades modernas más personas alcanzan mayores edades. Esto es visto como una crisis, como la imposición de una carga cada vez mayor de los costos debido a las necesidades de las personas mayores para la salud y la asistencia social y las pensiones. En este trabajo se propone una perspectiva más optimista. Señala que en la mayoría de los países de ingresos altos las personas están viviendo más tiempo, pero también son saludables y más activos en la vida que nunca. Los costos que imponen a los servicios de salud pueden ser exagerados. En consecuencia un número creciente de ellos trabajan, en forma remunerada o voluntaria, en el cuidado de los demás y reducen así el gasto público de los servicios. A menudo se afirma que las familias dedican menos atención a las personas mayores que en el pasado. Esto también es cuestionable. En el pasado, debido a las altas tasas de mortalidad en las edades más jóvenes, la pobreza y las altas tasas de migración, las personas mayores a menudo no contaban con apoyo familiar. Ahora, debido a la mayor esperanza de vida, nivel de vida y la tecnología moderna, las personas mayores pueden recibir más apoyo de la familia que en el pasado. La vejez es triste para muchas personas. Siempre lo ha sido. Pero no para todos. El grupo de mayor edad es muy diverso

The history of aging in the West

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Welfare and the State

The chapter examines development and change in the welfare role of the British state and the main influences upon it in the context of changing social, economic, and political conditions. It explores the Poor Law and its reform in the early nineteenth century and challenges to it later in the century; the growing role of the state in such fields as education, public health, and labour conditions through the nineteenth century; its more rapid growth through the twentieth century; and finally the challenges to state welfare from the 1980s. Throughout, the shifting but always significant relationship between the state and the voluntary sector in provision for welfare is described and discussed.</p

Patterns of Visibility: Unemployment in Britain during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

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