Introduction

Do we not realise that we all grow old? Can we not celebrate the fact that this privilege has been won for us by our collective ingenuity? Do we not realise that the best prospect for our own well-being in old age is to build a world in which equality, independence and active participation of all generations is positively encouraged?

Professor Tom Kirkwood,

‘The End of Age’ Reith Lecture (Kirkwood 2001).

The message is clear. For the first time in history, there will be fewer children in the world than older people, and, as the population ages, this shift will become one of the most significant and powerful forces for social change in the modern world. Consistently low birth rates and increasing life expectancy mean that approximately 700 million people (approximately 10% of the world’s population) are already over the age of 60, and it has been estimated that by 2050 Europe will have the world’s oldest population (United Nations 2013). In many ways this should be seen as a celebration of human endeavour, as advances in sanitation, medical research, nutrition and education have resulted in millions of people living into old age. Yet, despite these triumphs of progress, many older people do not feel like heroes of human achievement, and they frequently experience age discrimination

(Government Office for Science 2015). In other words, simply based on people’s membership of a certain social group (i.e. people who have grown old), ageism imposes practices and social attitudes that result in disadvantages and unfair treatment and often exclude older people from their full citizenship rights.