Abstract
Different forms of loneliness that may occur in later life are generally related to problems associated specifically with ageing, and in this chapter these problems will be described and discussed. The troubles and handicaps of what may be called the Third Age are of two kinds: those that are ‘biogenic’ and those that are ‘sociogenic’.1 By ‘biogenic’ we mean handicaps that arise simply through the process of becoming less robust and efficient in the course of ageing, and by ‘sociogenic’ we mean troubles that arise through the treatment of older people by society, and which could be lessened by more humane, sensible and unprejudiced attitudes and institutions. Social scientists reckon that the latter are far more responsible for the miseries and loneliness of later life than the former; indeed they may contribute to deterioration in physical fitness: for instance, if pensioners have to support themselves on an inadequate income they are much more likely to suffer from all sorts of physical ills arising from poor diet, inadequate housing, and a generally unhealthy life-style. Economizing on pensions may prove to be a foolish social policy if it results in greatly increasing the amount spent on the National Health Service.2
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Notes
See the Introduction to Alex Comfort, A Good Age, Revised Edition, London: Pan Books, 1990.
This matter is discussed by Alan Walker, ‘The Benefits of Old Age’, in Evelyn McEwan (ed.), Age: the Unrecognized Discrimination, London: Age Concern England, 1990, pp. 62–3.
Most of the physical effects of ageing are dealt with very fully in the various chapters of J. Grimley Evans (ed.), Health and Function in the Third Age, London: Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, 1992.
Louis Harris and Associates, The Myth and Realities of Aging in America, Washington, DC: National Council on Aging, 1975.
S.H. Zarit and A.B. Edwards, ‘Family Caregiving: Research and Clinical Intervention’, in R.T. Woods (ed.), Handbook of the Clinical Psychology of Ageing, Chichester: Wiley, 1997.
E. Cumming and W. Henry, Growing Old: the Process of Disengagement, New York: Basic Books, 1961.
N. Wells and C. Freer, (eds.), The Ageing Population: Burden or Challenge, London: Macmillan, 1988.
William Osler, quoted by W. Graebner, A History of Retirement, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980, pp. 4–5.
Donald Gould, ‘Death by Decree’, New Scientist, Vol. 114, 1987, p. 65.
There is extensive recent literature on this subject, much of it reviewed by Peter Laslett, A Fresh Map of Life, Second Edition, London: Macmillan, 1996.
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© 2000 H. B. Gibson
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Gibson, H.B. (2000). The Problems of Later Life. In: Loneliness in Later Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230510203_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230510203_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-92018-3
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