| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
Policies for the aged in the 21st century
— more 'structured dependency' or the realisation of human rights? | | Author(s) | Peter Townsend |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 26, part 2, March 2006 |
| Pages | pp 161-180 |
| Source | http://www.journals.cambridge.org/jid_ASO |
| Keywords | Services ; Needs [elderly] ; Rights [elderly] ; Social policy ; Social welfare ; Theory. |
| Annotation | Peter Townsend's paper, "The structured dependency of the elderly: creation of social policy in the twentieth century" was published in Ageing & Society, vol 1, 1981. In recognition of the author's contribution to social gerontology, he presented this paper at the annual meeting of the British Society of Gerontology (BSG) at the University of Keele in July 2005, an event also marking the 25th anniversary of this journal. During the final decades of the 20th century, older people were perceived and treated - according to much research evidence - as more dependent than they really were or needed to be, hence the idea of a "structured dependency". This paper argues that the release and implementation during after the Second World War of collective liberal egalitarian values, expressed in many countries in international statements on human rights, had a big impact on the design of public services, including those for older people. If the claims for older people in the welfare state of 50 years ago were exaggerated, as we can now safely conclude, the claims for older people today are even more exaggerated - at a time of heightened emphasis on individual rights and individual market powers. The various problems of "structured dependency" persist, and seem set to grow in many parts of the world. Human rights offer a framework of rigorous analysis and anti-discriminatory work. Success depends on good operational measurement, and the incorporation of international and national institutions and policies that reflect those rights. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-060314201 A |
| Classmark | I: IK: IKR: TM2: TY: 4D |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|