Planning for British Columbia’s aging population : information, paradigms, and strategies

Planners for British Columbia's aging population are beginning to contemplate the difficult problem of ensuring the future adequacy of supportive programs for the elderly in the key areas of health, income, and housing. It now appears that these programs may well be squeezed between increased demand resulting from a rapid rise projected in the number and proportion of older people early in the next century, and lower rates of provincial and national growth foreseen by most economists. This descriptive study draws on available relevant information (much of it included in tables, figures, and appendices) to explore the problem from its origins in previous policy development to the situation at the present time. From this perspective the implications of current demographic, economic, and political/bureaucratic trends for programs for the elderly are assessed in both the national and international contexts. After a consideration of the roles of philosophy and ideology in social theory, a wide range of social gerontological theories are examined using a sociological scheme which classifies them according to four major paradigms in order to determine their abilities to describe accurately the information presented, and to prescribe useful policy alternatives. It is concluded that a theoretical approach which advocates radical change from a structural perspective is both most valid and most productive as a paradigm for planning for the aging population. A description of the relationship of planning to social change, and a systems analysis of the process of public policy making together introduce a discussion of strategies based upon the selected planning paradigm. Once the approaches used in planning for the elderly in the past are critically reviewed, the outline of a radical structural plan for the aging population is described, and then a strategy for its implementation over the next two or three decades is presented. The report concludes with a brief summary, and a number of specific recommendations for action by the appropriate public authorities, including several suggestions for enhancing the capacity for policy and program research in this field. One important recommendation is for the early establishment in British Columbia of an inter-departmental agency on aging to co-ordinate information and planning for the province's elderly.Medicine, Faculty ofPopulation and Public Health (SPPH), School ofGraduat