The Significance of the Past in the Study of Ageing: Introduction to the Special Issue on History and Ageing

Abstract

‘These days no-one bothers with old people, not even their children or their relatives.’ This familiar falsehood is important to us here because of its initial phrase, two words which are very often met with in familiar conversation and which imply comparison with the past. The statement is false both because research on the family relationships of the elderly shows it to be so today, and because historical work fails to show that familial support has declined over time. Comparisons with the past, scholarly comparisons properly worked out, which illustrate what history can tell us about ageing and about ourselves as members of populations marked by long life and by the presence of many elderly persons, are the subject of the present issue of Ageing and Society.