Invecchiamento attivo e promozione del benessere: una prospettiva critica/Active ageing and the promotion of well-being: a critical perspective

Abstract

This contribution examines the paradigm of active ageing as an opportunity to address the challenges posed by increased longevity. Active ageing deserves special attention, as this concept has been central to multiple policies that have had a significant impact on the definition of public action in various EU and North American countries. At the same time, it has also been embraced by numerous international organisations. Concerns that increasing longevity could result in higher social and health costs for the community have led to a proliferation of European and international programmes promoting and implementing public policies for active ageing, as well as statistical indicators, mainly socio-economic, to measure the well-being of the elderly population. However, these policies have been implemented without any contextual reflection on the existing inequalities and situations of poverty in ageing processes and often without addressing the constraints and conditioning factors that old age inevitably entails. Alongside the stereotypical and uniform representation of older people as fragile, vulnerable and dependent (on family, services, etc.), which fails to capture the heterogeneity of ageing processes and their internal differences, a set of equally homogenising policies and discourses on active ageing has emerged. We must therefore question the “polymorphous” and “ambiguous” umbrella concept of active ageing and the cognitive frameworks that inspire public action, particularly about the adaptive capacities of the most vulnerable segments of the elderly population. As part of the neoliberal agenda, which focuses on empowerment and self-care to avoid so-called dependence on the state, as well as imposing performance targets at every age and in all areas of social life, well-being has not only become (a) a desirable condition that should define older people’s life, but also (b) an objective of active ageing policies, (c) a duty for the ageing person, (d) the prerequisite for a cohesive community and (e) an idea of life. By defining the preconditions and outcomes of good ageing, the latter becomes a normative ideal, prescribing how older people should age and the role they should play in society. Individuals are held responsible for their ageing processes and the consequences they may have for those who do not meet the normative expectations of the active ageing paradigm.

Keywords: Longevity; Well-being; Public Policies; Active Ageing; Individual Responsibility.