ABSTRACT
Older people have been all but invisible in international development policy and practice. Older people, typically characterized as economically unproductive, dependent and passive, have been considered at best as irrelevant to development and at worst as a threat to the prospects for increased prosperity. Consideration of family support systems begs the question of the quality of support available to older people without family resources. The polarization of 'traditional' and modern societies has compounded negative attitudes towards older people. It has been suggested that 'impoverishment in old age may be a common cross-cultural experience of the ageing process rather than simply resulting from 'modernization". Attempts to include older people issues on the international development agenda date back to 1948, at the initiative of Argentina a draft 'Declaration on Old Age Rights' was proposed at the United Nations General Assembly. However, it is also subject to the constructions by which each society makes sense of old age.
