Policies for active ageing and their family-related assumptions and consequences

Abstract

Active ageing has become the dominant paradigm governing the direction of public policies concerning older people in the Western world. There are many definitions of active ageing, but the central features of its approach encourage greater economic and social participation of older adults. In this chapter, we identify contradictions within the paradigm, and a failure to adequately situate it within the family lives – and life courses – of older people. We draw attention to the overemphasis in the active ageing paradigm on independent agentic older people who are expected to extend their participation in communities and economies, without adequately considering the relational circumstances and obligations that shape older people’s opportunities to participate more broadly. We posit that the active ageing paradigm fails to account for the importance and unequal distribution of contributions to family as forms of social and economic participation and productivity. These are inequalities that are heavily gendered. Consequently, there is a failure in the active ageing paradigm to recognize adequately the intersections – and contradictions – between active ageing policies and family policies, and between active ageing policies and national work/care regimes. Drawing on an examination of grandparent involvement in childcare in Sweden and Australia, we highlight these contradictions and demonstrate the lack of alignment in aspirations pertaining to ageing policy and family policy, and their gendered implications in different welfare states.