ABSTRACT
Academic studies of the elderly tend to focus on the special difficulties and needs of the most disadvantaged and disabled. If it is justifiable and understandable that the concern of social welfare policy is with those who require intensive medical, nursing or residential care, or domiciliary support, such emphases need on occasion to be balanced by consideration of the other elderly. In western countries only about one in twenty are resident in any kind of institution and, in England, only about one in ten receive visits from any public social service (Hunt, 1978). Most of the elderly are in good health, active, socially involved and fiercely proud of their independence. Earlier retirement, increasing life expectancy and rising real incomes in old age have combined to make obsolescent the view of retirement as a brief, inactive, passive and unrewarding phase of life. While no clear template exists of the roles and activities to be pursued after work, individual elderly people are exploring their individuality and their social positions in an extending 'third-age' of life. Much more study and consideration of normal, non-pathological, ageing is required, for the obstacles and problems that face the majority of people in late life have become submerged by the information concerning the more acute but rarer difficulties (Johnson, 1982). We need, for example, to turn our attention more to health education and promotion in late life, perhaps by preventive screening. We need to foster improved, less costly and more convenient dwellings for the majority of the elderly in general housing, as well as to continue to expand the provision of specialised dwellings.
