This week saw Older People’s Day – 1 October 2012 – come and go, with most people still probably thinking it involved a celebration of retirement and care technologies. What’s actually needed is a spark in awareness of the positive ways in which the increasing numbers of skilled and knowledgeable older people will impact on all our lives – and how employers, businesses and governments can benefit. The growing number of older people offers us an immense opportunity. Older people, after all, constitute an army within which there is knowledge, talent and ability. Many older people are already crucial to our businesses and services. In some cases, especially in the more developed economies of the EU, outdated attitudes and practices around work and retirement have tended to marginalise older people and turn them, often prematurely, from being contributors to being recipients. At the new Age Research Centre within Coventry University … (To read the full article, subscribe below)
Dr Malcolm Fisk is co-director of the Age Research Centre at Coventry University
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