Maria Łuszczyńska - Ageing as a Social Challenge: Individual, Family and Social Aspects in Poland

There is a common belief in the academic community that at a certain stage of their academic careers, scientists begin to choose for analysis the kinds of issues that somehow relate to their private lives. Such tendencies are understandable, insofar as researchers need to find a source of motivation that will allow them to persevere through what are often long years of stu2z2zzdy and analysis within the same thematic area. Within this context, I have sometimes wondered (only half in jest) why the entire scientific world has not chosen to focus on the study of old age? After all, the desire for longevity (or even immortality) has been a deep-seated aspect of human nature for thousands of years. The fact that ageing is a universal topic that will personally affect each of us might suggest that every sane researcher should seek to understand it, using whatever scholarly means are at his or her disposal.

Such a desire inspired my own initial interest in the topic of old age, which grew out of inquiries in the field of thanatology that led me to become curious about the experiences of elderly persons who, as a result of their place within the life course, are closer than most others to a natural death. I anticipated that acquiring a better understanding of older adults perspectives would help with developing an awareness of mortality and taming this inevitable aspect of human life. That hope turned out to be in vain though, as it became apparent that the elderly do not possess a better recipe for dying than young people do and yet that line of inquiry proved to be incredibly valuable, as older adults revealed themselves to possess a vast wealth of experience on the topic of life and living. Thus, more than a decade ago, I began in earnest a journey of learning about old age from various perspectives and through the prisms of different scientific disciplines. My growing interest in the field during these years coincided with the development of increasingly reliable demographic forecasts that showed ever more clearly that a Silver Tsunami was approaching, and that in the coming years, old age would permanently change the face of the planet. In a sense, this volume constitutes a record of the scholarly journey undertaken during this decade in which questions of old age and ageing have come to be seen as increasingly critical worldwide. In preparing this book, I hope to support all researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers who wish to familiarize themselves with the ageing process from an individual and social perspective and to develop concrete solutions for aiding older adults.

The volume may be of particular relevance for scholars who are seeking to study the situation of the elderly from comparative international perspectives. While ageing and old age are universal experiences, the ways in which communities around the world are attempting to creatively address the challenges brought by these phenomena are deeply influenced by local historical, political, economic, and cultural factors. Solutions to the challenge of ageing that arise spontaneously in one part of the world may not (yet) be obvious or feasible in other parts of the world. It is thus useful to conduct an in-depth analysis of the manner in which the challenges of ageing are being understood and addressed in a particular concrete society; to situate that analysis within the context of the global phenomenon of old age; and to make the resulting insights available to scholars and practitioners worldwide.

The country in which most of my research has been carried out over the last decade Poland is one of the largest and most influential countries in its region, and the complex chain of political and economic changes that the nation has experienced over the last century means that, today, Poland faces a distinct set of challenges relating to ageing and is formulating its own unique set of responses, some of which are proving more successful than others. However, despite the countrys potential significance for the global discourse on old age, language barriers mean that many of the most impactful studies, analyses, methodologies, initiatives, and proposals developed in Poland relating to ageing have remained inaccessible to the broader global community of scholars and practitioners.