Abstract

Age-specific mortality rates have been used to illustrate certain aspects of the characteristics of old age. A consideration of the experience of the ageing person in his fifties and early sixties suggests that during this period he comes to recognize death as being an increasingly common characteristic of his age group. Thus the standard procedure for studying old age problems in a sample of people over the age of 65 may miss the period of life when people are making the crucial adjustments to old age and may give a distorted view of some gerontological problems. Certain demographic aspects of old age are considered in detail with regard to the occurrence of, first, widowhood and, second, social isolation