Care and Control of the Elderly

Abstract

In previous chapters of this book I have sketched a framework for understanding attitudes towards old age. Attention has focused on the way in which state policies have often emphasised the ‘burden’ and ‘uselessness’ of older people. Official perspectives on retirement have rarely encouraged a positive view of this stage in the life-cycle, the condition of the economy at any one point influencing the acceptability of withdrawal from full-time employment. This environment had less destructive force when older people were a relatively insignificant part of the population. Now, however, with nearly one-fifth of the population aged 60-plus, state policies towards the old carry far greater impact.