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Community Participation

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Population Aging

Part of the book series: International Perspectives on Aging ((Int. Perspect. Aging,volume 3))

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Abstract

Amid the changes described in Chap. 6, an important question is how can communities and their older residents thrive and adapt to aging? Chapter 7 (Community Participation) addresses these issues, especially through an exploration of the concepts of social integration and social capital. At the community level, quality of life depends not only on the impacts of demographic, social and economic changes, but also on the extent to which communities provide a social environment fostering inclusiveness and opportunities for participation. Social integration and social capital facilitate these. The chapter discusses the applications of the two concepts in the context of the aging of community populations. The chapter argues that social integration is the foundation for the well-being of older people; beyond this, the social capital which older people can generate through civic engagement creates benefits for themselves and resources for the good of their communities. The value of this contribution is potentially considerable. However, the chapter presents survey data for European countries suggesting that only a minority of people aged 50 and over are thus engaged, with particularly low figures in some countries with the most unfavourable trends in population aging.

… people’s ability to access resources through their social capital can make a considerable difference to their life chances. In so far as the state is expected to intervene in the distribution of resources more generally, in areas such as health or education, social capital represents a tool of policy. In so far as social capital can itself be seen as a public good, it represents a goal of policy. Policies which promote social capital can therefore directly influence the well-being of the wider community. (J. Field 2003: 121)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T, 0200, Australia

    Donald T. Rowland

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Rowland, D.T. (2012). Community Participation. In: Population Aging. International Perspectives on Aging, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4050-1_7

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