ABSTRACT
In the years immediately after the Second World War, the particular concerns of old age became a subject for serious social investigation for the first time. As Sara Harper and Pat Thane indicate in Chapter 2, much significant social and medical investigation was conducted between 1945 and 1965. The growth in academic social gerontology has, however, been a much more recent phenomenon and it is only with this development that several important historical issues relating to old age in the present century have established themselves on the agenda for research. Among these we may cite debates over population ageing, the funding of pensions and other social services, and differential experiences by cohort, class, and gender. Retirement has been central to all of these, although the complexity of its impact has yet to be fully explored. Its growth is considered here as a specific political issue which, for the purposes of both clarity and brevity, is distinguished apart from the broader social history of the period.
