Public Policy and the Construction of Old Age in Europe

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Decision Editor: Vernon L. Greene, PhD The central theme of this brief contribution is that public policy has played (and continues to do so) a major role in determining the meaning of old age and, therefore, the extent of age integration and segregation. Old age has been constructed and reconstructed by social and economic policies and, for their part, older people have been expected to adjust to the reification of age into convenient social categories for the purpose of resource distribution and rationing; to the institutions of the welfare state set up to "manage" aging (the "aging enterprise"); and to the changing prescriptions of policy makers and professionals charged with their care. This is not to suggest that older people are the simple creatures of policy but, rather, that policy is a key component of an age structuration that leaves scope for active agency in the interpretation and reproduction of social reality. Older people interact with their environment in a reflexive way to create their own social reality. Futhermore, this policy context is set not only at the local and national levels but also by global agencies.