Is old age an ethical problem?

Western society has described the phenomenon of population ageing as a “problem” and a “burden” since the beginning of the twentieth century. There is evidence that industrialised, Western countries are inherently ageist. Studies have shown that older people are perceived as stereotypically rigid in thought and old fashioned in morality and values. Concurrently, older people have been found to frequently hold negative ideas about themselves. The older people included in one study reflected the narratives frequently seen in the popular media describing the ageing population in terms of a burden on available resources. A significant number of the participants of