Conclusion: Towards Globalizing the Experience of Aging?

As we look forward into the mid-twenty-first century, demographers forecast dramatic increases in cultural diversity in the general population of the globe, which will also be reflected in increasing aging populations. Globalization is a complex phenomenon including increasing human interconnectedness facilitated by new information technologies, huge volumes of trade, capital, people, and cultures flowing across national borders, and an evermore integrated global economy. Globalization can be experienced as structural forces impinging on our daily lives, as the creation of new spaces and interconnection between locales and also as ideological resources. A key issue is the relationship between globalization and population aging, which has possibilities and consequences for social change across the globe.