We live in a world increasingly characterized by its ageing population. According to the United Nations 2005 Human Development Report, with the exception of eighteen countries termed ‘demographic outliers’, the growth in the number and proportion of older persons is taking place in every country and region across the globe. But especially in Asia and Europe a significant number of countries face severe population ageing in the near future. In twenty years or so the largest population cohort in many countries on these continents will be those aged over sixty-five, and the average age will be nearly fifty. In the UK, for example, by 2001 there were more people aged over sixty than under sixteen. And, in Japan, people over sixty-five are expected to make up more than one-quarter of the population by 2020. Moreover, the older population itself is ageing. The ‘80+ cohort’ is the fastest growing section of the older population and the United Nations estimate that the number of centenarians will increase fifteen-fold from approximately 145,000 in 1999 to 2.2 million by 2050.
This change in the nature of the world’s populations has profound health and social welfare consequences, not least because older people represent the major consumers of health and welfare services (in the UK, for example, it is estimated that 50% of public health expenditure is accounted for by those aged over 65). Against such a background, this new four-volume title in the Routledge Major Works series, Major Themes in Health and Social Welfare, answers the need for a collection of canonical and the best cutting-edge research on the health and social-care needs of older people.
Caring for the elderly is a vibrant and dynamic area of study and research, and the sheer scale of the growth in its output makes this collection especially timely. Furthermore, the highest quality work in the broad field of health and social welfare for older people has emanated from a wide range of different academic disciplines and professional groups, and has been published in a variety of largely specialist journals. Caring for the Elderly makes available the best scholarship from these disparate, and sometimes less accessible sources, as well as from the leading UK, European, and North American health and social-care journals, and from other publications, some of which are no longer in print.
Caring for the Elderly embraces a diversity of bio-medical, social, psychological and policy perspectives and Volume One collects the best research on the health status of older people. Volume Two examines the issues and controversies around the mental health and psychological well-being of the elderly, while VolumeThree explores health care and health policies for an ageing population. Volume Four brings together work on the social-care responses to population ageing, including the challenges and prospects for community care and the role of informal care.
With comprehensive introductions to each volume, newly written by the editor, which place the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Caring for the Elderly is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued by scholars, students and practitioners as a vital research resource.
