The meaning of old age

Aging is a biological, natural and universal process, which applies to any living creature. On the one hand, the attitude towards aging is highly subjective and depends on society and on personal needs. On the other hand, the attitude of the aged is related to his or her feelings of being productive, that s/he is needed, and the respect and treatment given by his or her family.

According to legends, books and films, every old person belongs to one of the prototypes characterizing this age group. Sometimes, s/he is rich and miserly, a tyrannical, wicked, bitter soul who estranges him/herself from his or her family, drives his or her workers crazy and threatens to exclude his or her family from his or her will. At other times, s/he is poor, lonely, neglected, homeless and penniless, submerged in depression and longing for the family that abandoned him. In real life, an old person is first of all a human being.

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All over the modern world, adults, and especially the elderly, constitute the population group with the highest rate of numerical growth. For example, while in France it took the elderly population 115 years, from 1865 to 1980, to double from 7% to 14% of the total population, the same process will take only 28 years in China, from the year 2000 to 2028. Of the 1.2 billion people aged sixty and over who are expected to be living in the world in 2020, two thirds will be living in developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico, Bangladesh and Nigeria. For example, the population of the elderly (60 or older) in China is about 128 million, or one in every ten people, the largest in the world. It is estimated that China will have some 400 million people aged over 60 years by 2050 (taken from the Internet, The Elderly in China).

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