As born optimists, both editors hope that this collection of papers may contribute to the 'coming of age' for issues of ageing as a mainstream concern for development studies. There are many signs of hope, especially as the Second UN Assembly on Ageing, held in Madrid in April of this year, discussed and defined a broader agenda for global issues of ageing. 1 Perhaps the penny has finally dropped. Since the 1980s there have been more people aged 60 and over in developing regions than in the North, and the speed of demographic change is unprecedented. Figure 1 below shows the regional distribution of older people in the world, today and as predicted for the middle of this century. By 2050, there will be 12 Africans over 60 years of age for every European in that age range. These demographic changes have fundamental implications for the economies and societies of the developing world. If older people continue to be 'invisible' within development research and policy, the prospects of securing a substantial improvement in poverty and living standards in the South are slim.
This set of papers focuses on the links existing between ageing and poverty in developing countries. Higher incidence of poverty among older people, imply that population ageing in the South will, in the absence of policy interventions, lead to rising global poverty. The paper of Gorman and Heslop reviews evidence on the link between old age and poverty emerging from qualitative studies. The paper by Barrientos provides a review the evidence on this link emerging from quantitative studies. These two papers show that exposure to poverty and vulnerability increases in old age. They also show the multidimensional nature of old age poverty.
A danger of focusing on old age and poverty is that it might reinforce what has been called a 'negative paradigm' of old age. This equates old age with dependence, ill health and generally poor quality of life. In this perspective, older people are a burden, to their