ABSTRACT
Demographic development in Western industrial nations has led to continually increasing life expectancy and a rising proportion of the elderly in the overall population; in Germany this already amounts to over twenty-five per cent. Liberation from social roles opens a space for complex identifications including bisexual tendencies which may encourage creative impulses. In age there is a so-called gender shift: women become more active, autonomous and independent—after retiring from work men often become more passive and withdrawn. The processes of ageing occur asymmetrically and asynchronously for men and women in biological, psychological, and social respects. Older and old women who live in marriage or partnerships remain alone on account of their different life expectancy. Bodily relationships of mental disturbances are generally on the increase particularly in women and as age progresses whereby somatic and mental influences may overlap into "individual complex multi-morbidity"; the consequences for welfare "do not follow simple rules".
