Category Archives: Ageing in society

Observations on how we treat older people and react to ageing in our society.

Mature Age Jobseekers on the Rise

The 2014 Federal Budget included many new initiatives that will affect mature age workers and Seniors. Some have been received well others, others not so well like the proposed increase in the pension age to 70.

While we can sit around and debate the merit of these programs, what we can be certain of is that something does need to be done to increase the workforce participation rate of mature age workers.

Broadly speaking, the last 30 years have seen an increase in participation among Australians in their 50s and 60s. However, in more recent times, this growth has plateaued. So what does this tell us? Well, a couple of things. read more

69 Love Sex Senior

69 love sex seniorNone of us wants to think about our grandparents “doing it”. We pretend to ourselves that at a certain age, people lose interest in sex. We keep it in the realm of the young – those with firm bodies, unbridled passions and, well… flexibility.

In 69 Love Sex Senior, filmmaker Menna Laura Meijer not only challenges our denial of older people as sexual beings but also explores their broad variety of sexual and romantic experiences. She shows that sex and love continue into older years in just as many different forms as we see amongst the young. Together with her wonderfully warm and entertaining selection of older people she explores a broad spectrum of experiences and expectations. read more

Celebrate living history

The smile from a senior sharing a story with a university student is what makes me happy.  

celebrate living history project 2Sometimes we forget to look beyond age and realise there is a person underneath who has a rich history to share.

I remember doing an interview with a former teacher and she said “Bev, when you get old, you too will become invisible.”

Maybe because the blinkers have been taken off my eyes I asked “But how I can see you?”

She told me sometimes she could be physically there, but ignored, people don’t think she is special just a little old lady. read more

HOME: An unusual arts project about ageing

My name is Brienna Macnish and I’m twenty-five. For the past twelve months I have been interviewing older people about their experiences of ageing as part of an arts project called HOME. I’ve heard lots of different stories, some uplifting, some deeply sad and have been struck time and time again by the generosity with which people have shared their stories with me.

HOME is the result of my interviewing. It is an audio work, experienced by one person at a time inside the home of a stranger.  Individually, audience members walk through a home, exploring and listening to a very personal and moving account of one woman’s experience of the years passing. read more

Third Age: Don’t panic, it’s just another stage of life

When my internet goes down, stay away from me.

I become a maniac. It creates a special kind of anxiety of which I knew nothing before the days of my beloved laptops. I remember each laptop as people remember their dead pets. And my early ones, not to mention the telephone services that sustained them, were as dependable as a politician’s promise.

I’d never have managed if my computer blokes, Darryl and Rob, had not lived close and were always there for the stuttering, distressed victim of early internet mania. Some friends gave up on the internet because of these early experiences. Others became stronger for it, learning quickly that the only constant is perpetual change. I just got better laptops and worse internet anxiety. That is the difference between young and old internet users. The young take the internet for granted. The old see it as a miracle and fear its loss. read more

Old age

I can’t die now: I have enough coat hangers for the first time in my life.

This seems a powerful reason for ploughing on further into my 70s. You are sensing that deep down I am a frivolous woman. It is a reaction to all the people taking up laptops and telling people how to be old. I just can’t take it. When I started this column in 2008 no one had a word to say for the old. Now the air is thick with pontifications and I really hate it. My only mantra is: don’t be told how to be old.

Listen up. I am the first to say that old people should have jobs if they want them (as I did in my last column). I am the last to say it should be compulsory. read more

The longevity revolution & ageism

“Ageism differs in that it is not directed at a minority group; it impacts on men and women of every race. But the predominant images of old age are out of keeping with the evidence.” Patricia Edgar

With the longevity revolution we are entering a new and unprecedented stage of our history. With advances in medicine and public health, most of the world’s people have gained 30 additional years of life in the 21st century. People now expect longer and healthier lives.

Yet despite this immense demographic change we continue to have obsolete attitudes about growing older. The social construct of old age and how older people are viewed should now be updated and revised. read more

The beauty of age

laughing coupleWorking in marketing and communications in the not-for-profit sector, I have am always considerate of how people are portrayed in both words and images. How we represent people to the rest of the community can have a really big impact on how that particular group of people, whether it is people experiencing homelessness, people with disabilities, people of different ethnicities or older people, are perceived by the general community. That perception in turn drives how those people are treated in society. read more