Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Social Science Demography

Aging and Demographic Change in Canadian Context

edited by David Cheal

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2003
Category
Demography, General
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780802085054
    Publish Date
    Apr 2003
    List Price
    $49.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442670730
    Publish Date
    Mar 2003
    List Price
    $51.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

The Canadian population is aging. As the "Baby-Boomer" generation reaches retirement age, policy-makers have begun to fear the economic and demographic challenges ahead. Aging and Demographic Change in Canadian Context responds to this alarmist view. The contributors present several alternative perspectives and question whether an aging society is necessarily inferior or problematic compared with the recent past, cautioning that exaggerated concerns about population aging can be harmful to rational policy making. The contributors argue that it is important to develop forward-looking programs that may influence life course trajectories in favourable directions, and that these new policies should be developed with respect to the life course considered as a whole. "Old age" is a slippery concept, and the effective boundaries between it and "middle age" are not always clear. The essays in Aging and Demographic Change in Canadian Context address these challenges and seek to broaden public discussion on aging and Canadian public policy.

About the author

David Cheal is Professor of Sociology at the University of Winnipeg.

David Cheal's profile page