Conclusion: Realising active ageing

Abstract

This chapter brings the book together by summarising the key findings from each of the main chapters; highlighting the major policy reforms necessary to ensure that Europe adjusts successfully to its advanced ageing; revisiting the core concept of active ageing to reiterate its importance to the future of ageing in Europe; and, finally, a very brief summary of the necessary conditions for the realisation of active ageing. The presentation of the key findings is organised around the major themes of each chapter: strategies of active ageing; economic sustainability; improving private pensions; extending working lives; participation, health and well-being, staying healthy in old age; the built and technological environments; long-term care; and political participation. Each section also contains one key policy priority. The concluding sections of this chapter, when revisiting active ageing, contains a critique of the dominant approach to it taken by policy makers in Europe, essentially a reduction to working longer, and a call for a new orientation that emphasises the life course prevention of the chronic conditions associated with later life.