ABSTRACT
Active ageing is now established as the leading global policy strategy in response to population ageing. This pre-eminence was assured by its promotion by international governmental organisations (IGOs) such as the WHO, UN and OECD. In practice, however, the term ‘active ageing’ often serves merely as a convenient label for a wide range of contrasting policy discourses and initiatives concerning ageing and demographic change. A key theme of this chapter is that this lack of clarity about precisely what active ageing consists of is a serious barrier to its widespread adoption as a policy strategy. There are other barriers too and these are also examined in the chapter. It is argued that the over-emphasis on productivity and the labour market in active ageing discourses has detracted from the major potential of this approach to promote much wider wellbeing across all age groups and not only older people. Thus the chapter concludes with an outline of the steps necessary to realise this greater potential. The key reference point and one of the main reasons why active ageing has attracted global interest is demographic ageing but, as the main dimensions of this challenge in East Asia have been discussed in Chapter 1, they will not be repeated here. Another important element of the context for the discussion of active ageing is the policy discourses concerning population ageing, because it is a policy concept as well as a scientific one. That is where we start.
