Summary
The panic surrounding the “greying” of western societies reflects an unnecessarily negative view of older people. This paper examines how models of the life-span can either encourage panic or assist us to construct a society with a positive attitude to the contribution of its older people. The paper contrasts “rise and fall” models, which include most physiological and cognitive theories, with “progress” models such as stage or life course theories. In particular it is argued that life course approaches with the addition of a political-economy perspective are promising in that they reposition older people individually and collectively as active contributing creators of their own quality of life.
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Leonard, R., Burns, A. (2001). Models of the Life-Span for an Ageing Society. In: Morss, J.R., Stephenson, N., van Rappard, H. (eds) Theoretical Issues in Psychology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6817-6_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-6817-6_23
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-4890-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-6817-6
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