In our third article on the UK’s ageing population Alan Hatton-Yeo argues that while the discourse has changed much over the last two decades, ageism remains a key barrier
The European Year of Solidarity between Generations took place back in 1993. At the end of the 1980s the realisation that people were living longer and birth rates were starting to fall led to a growing debate about the ‘demographic time bomb’ against a background of concern that increasing numbers of older people would consume more and more resources for their expensive care needs and this would lead to conflict between generations and economic stress.
The concept behind 1993 was to challenge the underlying negative stereotype of older people that was the driver for these concerns and instead explore the opportunities that people living and contributing longer could give to society. Those of you with long memories will also recall that the late 80s and early 90s were a time of great general economic anxiety.
The prevailing 18 years have seen the emergence of two parallel strands of debate that are inconsistent and contradictory. On one hand we recognise that the increase in life expectancy is one of the great successes of the last 100 years. There is a growing movement around active and positive ageing that promotes the positive engagement of people across the life course as active, contributing citizens.
But at the same time we also still have deeply embedded ageism that sees ‘elderly’ people as consumers of resources, bed-blockers and of diminishing importance. At the same time many people seek to reject their own ageing, trying to avoid considering that they will become old as this is seen ambivalently as being negative and about loss and deficit.
The idea of ‘active ageing’, first promoted by the UN in 1999, suggests that stereotyping of older people as frail and dependent will be challenged as active older people became more visible and better integrated into society. Concepts of ‘successful’ and ‘positive’ ageing emphasise physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, consider psychological adjustment and autonomy, and incorporate a focus on the rights of older people. This idea of active ageing has had great influence on thinking in recent years.
In 2002 article 6 the UN Madrid Declaration on Ageing stated: ‘The modern world has unprecedented wealth and technological capacity and has presented extraordinary opportunities: to empower men and women to reach old age in better health, and with more fully realized well-being; to seek the full inclusion and participation of older persons in societies; to enable older persons to contribute more effectively to their communities and to the development of their societies; and to steadily improve care and support for older persons as they need it… When ageing is embraced as an achievement, the reliance on human skills, experiences and resources of the higher age groups is naturally recognized as an asset in the growth of mature, fully integrated, humane societies.’
In the UK this was followed up in 2003 by the Local Government Association report Inverting the triangle of care that made a powerful economic and health and wellbeing case for changing our thinking on ageing. Rather than investing in expensive services to mitigate acute and chronic problems we instead needed to invest in opportunities to enable people to take control of their own ageing and be active and valued citizens for as long as they wished. The report argued that the challenge was to keep people so that they lived longer but in better health.
In 2005 the government published Opportunity Age which again had a focus on creating a culture of opportunity around ageing with people enabled to play a full part in society. This was not to deny the challenges associated with growing older, particularly for those people who experienced disadvantage and inequality. Instead it attempted to produce a model of ageing as a life course or continuum model with the aim to provide support, interventions and opportunities to enable people to receive the support they needed to manage their own ageing as effectively as possible.
Being economically active, receiving advice and support around key life events, being valued and acknowledged were all key elements. Equally important was the support to those many older people who as carers, volunteers or friends enabled others to thrive.
Currently, and again in a time if economic challenge, the debate about demographic change has become high profile in the press with an increase in stories about generational conflict, the greedy old geezers who have stolen the young’s legacy. At the same time changes around retirement ages, pension levels and paying for the cost of care have become a feature of debate.
No one can deny that we need to think about ageing differently but we need to find a way to do this that confronts the ageism that is such an insidious part of our society. Research shows that attitudes have not changed significantly over the past 25 years. The stories of neglect still occur regularly. While there has been great progress in recognising the human rights of most groups in society it still seems to be acceptable to perpetuate images of the old through jokes that would be unacceptable for any other group.
The recognition that ageing presents great opportunity has been only partially achieved. Changes in family structures and greater social mobility have also weakened some of the natural supports that existed in the past. We are seeing an increase in the numbers of people living in loneliness and isolation.
The Madrid Declaration was based on the need for a ‘society for all ages’ and we now need to start to think about the interdependencies that link us all together. Instead of categorising groups by age we need a vision of people as individual human beings with their own unique identities constructed through experience and opportunity not by date of birth.
Next year will be the European Year of Active Ageing and Solidarity between the Generations. Our ideas may have moved forward but we are still struggling to promote a culture of opportunity for people as they age. Discrimination is still widespread and we are still seeking to find a way to fairly promote the rights of our older citizens while often denying we are growing older ourselves.
This September will see the relaunch of the WHO Age Friendly City movement in Dublin. The debate will again focus on providing structures and systems that will let our older citizens thrive. Maybe the change we need now is to change the debate to be about people of all ages and to recognise the one thing that all people have in common is that we are growing older. The debate is about all of us and how we want to age. It isn’t about other people.
- For more on our series on ageing see Older and Wiser?
- Download the ezine version of this article.