ABSTRACT
Rural ageing has become a defining demographic narrative of the twenty-first century. The enduring out-migration of rural youth, ageing in place of rural older residents and in-migration of retired older populations have awarded rural regions, small towns and villages with the highest rates of population ageing worldwide. Decades of research on ageing in rural environments has resulted in limited progress towards developing a distinctive rural gerontology. Geographical perspectives on rural ageing have provided an understanding of how the various spaces, places and scales associated with the rural both shape the experiences of, and are shaped by, older adults. Of particular importance for building our understanding of rural gerontology is the influence of several developments aimed at addressing the lack of engagement with contextually sensitive, policy oriented and critical perspectives within gerontology more broadly. This chapter also presents an overview on the key concepts discussed in this book.
