The Eighth Decade: Family Structure and Support Networks in the Community

Abstract

In Great Britain, as in Europe, more people are living into their seventies — their eighth decade — than ever before. Yet as Phillipson argues, old age has traditionally been viewed as a period of social redundancy. It is also a time when considerable demands are made upon our health and welfare services. Thirty five per cent of the expenditure on health and welfare services in Great Britain is spent upon those aged 65 and over (Phillipson, 1982), who account for only 15% of the population (HMSO, 1984). Thus the pathological perspective of the elderly predominant in our health and welfare literature is to this extent understandable (e.g. Isaacs and Neville, 1976; Age Concern, 1977).

.....First, as a society we are still in the early stages of interpreting and understanding old age; second, old age is still identified as a period of social redundancy, with the “non-productiveness” of the old being a pervasive theme in the history of social policy (Phillipson, 1982, p. 7).