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E-book Ageing as Future : A Study by the Volkswagen Foundation

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Penilaian

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Like many other countries in the world, Germany is ageing. By now, no one can escape this insight. For decades, the Federal Republic of Germany was marked by a remarkable abstinence from population policy, both discursively and operationally. The bon mot handed down by the former German Chancellor Adenauer from 1949 to 1963, “People always have children,” is not only an expression of widespread confidence due to the economic miracle but also an implicit demarcation of West German postwar democracy from the racist pronatalism of the Nazi era. But since the turn of the millennium at the latest, demographic change has become one of the most important sociopolitical topics. Some popular German authors such as Frank Schirrmacher (2004) and Thilo Sarrazin (2010) contributed to this debate in differ-ent and polarizing ways, proclaiming that more and more attention is being paid to demography and demographic policy.Since then, the German public has looked with concern at its own low birth rates and with envy at the much higher birth rates of European neighbors such as France or Sweden. Recently rising annual birth rates were noted with relief and immediately celebrated as a “small baby boom” (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2016). On the other hand, statistical water-level reports about the seemingly unstoppable demographic decline are sometimes gleefully conjured up. Germany is ageing—sometimes “rapidly” (Die Welt, 2014a, b), sometimes “racy” (Stern, 2012). Or even worse: “France is ageing, Germany is greying,” reported the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as early as 2010, coupled with the horrifying vision that by 2050 there could be more French than Germans. Hence, there is no doubt that the situation is serious.In Germany, according to the latest 14th coordinated population projection from 2018,1 the number of people under 18 will fall from just under 14.4 million in 2018 to around 13.4 million in 2060, while the number of people over 67 will rise from 15.9 million to over 21 million in the same period. Proportionally, the numerical balance that currently still exists between younger and older people, who each make up just under one-fifth of the total population, will thus shift sharply in favor of the older: According to the aforementioned calculation variant, 18% of people living in Germany will still belong to the under-20 age group in 2060, but more than one in four of them (27%) will be older than 67, and almost one in seven of the resident population (13%) will even have already reached the ninth decade of life (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2019, pp. 17–28). Not unlike many other countries in the world.There is therefore no denying it: Germany is ageing. But what does that mean actually? Can a society age at all as a whole? How should we imagine an ageing society? Is it a collective figure who slowly gets wrinkles and puts on old age fat? Is it a social body that at first starts to become more sedate and soon groans and moans with every movement? Is it an idealized total senior citizen who, in his old age, may—if all goes well—be deeply relaxed, mild, and wise, but who may also, “that is just how they are, the elderly” become bitter, stubborn, and obstinate?

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

612.67 LAN a

Penerbit

Switzerland : Springer Nature., 2024

Deskripsi Fisik

166 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783031575075

Klasifikasi

612.67

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Aging, Gerontology

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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