Page 117 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 1-2: Etika in šola, ur. Marjan Šimenc in Mitja Sardoč
P. 117
he Role of Knowledge about Aging in Creating
Young People’s Attitudes to the Elderly
Danijela Lahe, Jana Goriup
Life expectancy in the last few decades has been extensively pro
longed. This prolongation in contemporary Western societies, espe
cially in Europe, has led to large and unexpected structural chang
es in the population. The number of elderly people is growing intensively,
while there are fewer and fewer children and adolescents. According to
the UN (United Nations, 2015), in 1980 6.4 % of the population was old
er than 65 years; in 2015 their number increased to 10 %. Ditch (1994: pp.
74) realized that in the countries of the European Union, the number of
people aged over 60 has risen by nearly 50 % in the last 30 years, which rep
resents one fifth of the total population, i.e. 70 million, and that demo
graphic forecasts indicate that the number of elderly people in Europe will
have risen to 57 % between 2010 and 2030. The forecast is that the fastes
growing group of people is the group of people older than 85 years of age,
and this should not be ignored. This is also the part of the population that
needs extensive social and medical care.
Thus, as never before, we are faced with an (im)balance between the
young, middle and older generations regarding their number. In the com
ing decades, an even greater disparity can be expected, in 2050 it is pro
jected to grow to as much as 20.5 %. Baldock (1993, in Rener, 1997: pp. 41)
points out that there are sufficient grounds for the thesis, which many
authors write about, that aging and the aging society and the relation of
other generations towards the elderly will become central social problems.
The author (ibid.) therefore asks whether we are, and how we are, as a soci
ety, prepared for an old age and aging society, since both aging and old age,
like childhood and youth, are largely social constructs, regulated by the
115
Young People’s Attitudes to the Elderly
Danijela Lahe, Jana Goriup
Life expectancy in the last few decades has been extensively pro
longed. This prolongation in contemporary Western societies, espe
cially in Europe, has led to large and unexpected structural chang
es in the population. The number of elderly people is growing intensively,
while there are fewer and fewer children and adolescents. According to
the UN (United Nations, 2015), in 1980 6.4 % of the population was old
er than 65 years; in 2015 their number increased to 10 %. Ditch (1994: pp.
74) realized that in the countries of the European Union, the number of
people aged over 60 has risen by nearly 50 % in the last 30 years, which rep
resents one fifth of the total population, i.e. 70 million, and that demo
graphic forecasts indicate that the number of elderly people in Europe will
have risen to 57 % between 2010 and 2030. The forecast is that the fastes
growing group of people is the group of people older than 85 years of age,
and this should not be ignored. This is also the part of the population that
needs extensive social and medical care.
Thus, as never before, we are faced with an (im)balance between the
young, middle and older generations regarding their number. In the com
ing decades, an even greater disparity can be expected, in 2050 it is pro
jected to grow to as much as 20.5 %. Baldock (1993, in Rener, 1997: pp. 41)
points out that there are sufficient grounds for the thesis, which many
authors write about, that aging and the aging society and the relation of
other generations towards the elderly will become central social problems.
The author (ibid.) therefore asks whether we are, and how we are, as a soci
ety, prepared for an old age and aging society, since both aging and old age,
like childhood and youth, are largely social constructs, regulated by the
115
