Facing the challenges of an ageing society

Abstract

Since the mid-20th century the world’s population has been ageing, most noticeably in the most advanced (developed) societies, with social consequences so profound that they justify forging the concept of the ‘ageing society’. The ageing society emerges as a result of, principally, low fertility rates and decreasing mortality combined with increasing longevity. Sociologists and social demographers see such a society as a harbinger of a shift to the ‘fourth stage’ of demographic transition, whereby birth and death rates stabilise at a low level and longevity increases (Cardwell 2006). Parallel to these processes, there are some changes in the social structure,