Looking ahead to the twenty-first century

Abstract

Much of the matter of this book has been concerned with the fact that the age structure of Britain has radically altered during the twentieth century, and that this naturally has a significant effect on how older people are perceived in society, and how they perceive themselves, a factor that is relevant to their emotional well-being. This is not a phenomenon which is confined to the West and the most developed countries, but is world-wide. The increase in the number of people in the later decades of life has two main causes, as pointed out by Laslett (1989). First, the progress of medical science and general public health measures has caused people to live longer; second, the deliberate restriction of the size of families by methods of birth control means that there are proportionately fewer people in the younger age cohorts to replace those who are now aged. In Britain the records indicate that birth control began to be used to a significant degree in the 1870s in middle-class families, and the practice has spread to all classes in the present century, so that we are now a comparatively old community.