From retirement to active ageing: Changing images of “old age” in the late twentieth century

In the context of the ongoing and anticipated changes in the age structure of European societies, the social category of the “young old” has been discovered in recent political and scientific discourse as a possible resource in the public fight against the (alleged) problems of population ageing. The rise of the “active ageing” paradigm suggests that mobilizing the increasingly healthy and well-educated elderly, be they employed or retired, will eventually result in a win-win-game for individuals, institutions and society at large. The contribution presents findings of an empirical study on the changing images of “old age” in Germany which combines discourse analysis and qualitative interviews with elderly people in order to identify the dynamics and mechanisms of the ongoing social construction of age and ageing. While the story line of the “restless age” dominant in public discourse since the late 1980s is today being widely adopted and reproduced by people aged 60 to 70, the more recent “productive ageing” story line shows to be accepted only reluctantly (or at best partially) by the elderly themselves. It seems that the identity construction of a “young old” person proposed and propagated by politics and the media is lacking – at least for the time being – broad resonance on the part of people who consistently reject being addressed as “old” by any means, and who conceive and depict themselves rather as older (or “mature”) adults. This may be an important finding with regard to the prospects – and limits – of “activating” the big cohorts of “baby boomers” who will move, in Germany and elsewhere, into retirement in the years to come.