ABSTRACT
For the first time in history, most people throughout the world can expect to live into their 60s and beyond. This tremendous demographic achievement has been accompanied by the increased diversity of older people. It also foregrounds the importance of space for our understanding of ageing and later life. On the one hand population ageing is seen as a global phenomenon. Yet there are significant differences in the timing, speed and level of population ageing as well as the in the spatial distribution of older populations and the ageing of the older population itself. In this presentation I will draw on data from official statistics and international surveys to critically explore the spatial patterning of the three dimensions of Fraser’s theory of justice – redistribution/maldistribution, recognition/mis-recognition, and representation/misrepresentation – and the extent to which they help us understand ageing in the context of globalisation. Overall the data show that there is a high degree of international variation in the extent to which older people are excluded from process of redistribution, recognition and representation. The data clearly point to the persistence of inequalities and a lack of justice for groups of older people around the world. However, the analyses also show that there appears to be little evidence that globalisation per se has had a uniformly negative impact on the production and re-production of these inequalities.
