Aging and Demographic Change in Canadian Context (Trends Project)

The Canadian population is aging. As the "Baby-Boomer" generation reaches retirement age, policy-makers have begun to fear the economic and demographic challenges ahead. Aging and Demographic Change in Canadian Context responds to this alarmist view. The contributors present several alternative perspectives and question whether an aging society is necessarily inferior or problematic compared with the recent past, cautioning that exaggerated concerns about population aging can be harmful to rational policy making. The contributors argue that it is important to develop forward-looking programs that may influence life course trajectories in favourable directions, and that these new policies should be developed with respect to the life course considered as a whole. "Old age" is a slippery concept, and the effective boundaries between it and "middle age" are not always clear. The essays in Aging and Demographic Change in Canadian Context address these challenges and seek to broaden public discussion on aging and Canadian public policy.

David Cheal is Professor of Sociology at the University of Winnipeg.