Risk, Ageing and Policy

This chapter explores the complex relationship of ageing, risk and policy in contemporary British society. I do this by interrogating the space between what has been coined the ‘risk society’ and the policy implications for older people in relation to the extension of their working lives to ready themselves for deep old age. At one level, the UK social policy of extending working life has been a significant outcome of the debate concerning the economic sustainability of ageing populations. Yet at another level, the lowest state pension in the Western world has impacted the quality of life of older people to the extent to which low resources have led to lower life expectancy and choices over ‘eat or heat’ in terms of managing those resources, which can have fatal consequences in terms of death.