FRHD 3060 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Gerontology, Population Ageing, Fear Mongering
4 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
When studying for the midterm look at how it affects the individual level and the societal level. Apocalyptic demography is a fear-mongering tactic, if we respond appropriately then there is no issue with an aging population: we are blowing things out of proportion. It consists of five inter-related themes: aging is a social problem, homogenization of older people, age blaming, intergenerational injustice, intertwining of population aging and social policy. We automatically frame it as a negative thing, a social problem that needs fixing. We"ve successfully increased lifespan due to better healthcare, better social policy. Aging is a process not an illness. There"s no winning here, both images are negative. We blame older adults for over-using social benefits and leaving us with debt: there are no hospital beds because of all the bed blockers etc. Dependency ratios are the favourite tool of voodoo demographers. Particularly today aging is a guiding paradigm for the welfare state: pensions, healthcare, retirement.
