Reimagining Active Ageing for New Times

Active ageing emerged as a policy concept in the 1980s and 1990s as an approach to thinking about how to support older people to engage in activities to achieve health and well-being and participate in the community. In 2002, the World Health Organization (WHO) provided a broad definition of active aging encompassing engagement and participation in “social, economic, cultural, spiritual and civic affairs (WHO 2002, 12). However, since that time, the focus of active ageing policies has narrowed to emphasise participation in paid work and physical activity. The active ageing framework has underpinned widespread policy investment in support for older people’s economic activity and, to a lesser extent, support for physical activity. But it has also been challenged for failing to adequately encompass inequalities in access to opportunities for social and economic participation, and failing to properly consider the full range of socially and economically important ways that older people engage in and with their communities. This session aims to provide new engagements with the concept of active ageing in our contemporary context, including but not limited to:

• Inequalities in opportunities to age actively
• Impacts of the changing climate on active ageing
• COVID-19 and active ageing
• New or previously less visible ways in which older people participate in and contribute to communities