When I grow old...Third age and leisure research: principles and practice - introduction

It [the increasing proportion of older people] is such a fundamental change in the nature and structure of society that it should lead to a fundamental shift in the way that society is understood and the way that society deals with itself. (Walker, n.d.) The 21st century has become known as the ‗Silver Century‘, the century of the older person (Magnus, 2008). In the vanguard of this significant restructuring of the generations, never before seen globally, with increasingly fewer young people and a greater proportion of older people, is Japanese society. The UK and other advanced and developed countries are not demographically far behind. The ‗Baby Boomer‘ generation born around the end of World War II (1945–1962) is retired or about to retire1 and is set to make up a significant proportion of Western civilisation. Yet society is still very much attuned to the younger generations, whose members may regard the older generation as without cultural, social, economic or political significance. This ‗structural lag‘, in which ideas about older people and society are ―locked 20 or 30 years in the past‖, Walker (n.d.) argues, is unprecedented and provides for current age discrimination: ―Ageism‖, he says, ―is deeply embedded in society yet the structures of society are changing in a radical way‖. Popular discourse on ageing is largely out of kilter with the experiences of many of the over-60s population who have wealth, whilst there is a significantly contrasting negative position for those without such economic means