We have to realise how old, how very old, we are. Nations are classified as "aged" when they have 7 per cent or more of their people aged 65 or above, and by about 1970 every one of the advanced countries had become like this. Of the really ancient societies, with over 13 per cent above 65, all are in Northwestern Europe. At the beginning of the 1980's East Germany had 15.6 per cent, Austria, Sweden, West Germany and France had 13.4 per cent or above, and England and Wales 13.3 per cent. Scotland had 12.3 per cent. Northern Ireland 10.8 percent and the United States 9.9 per cent. We know that we are getting even older, and that the nearer a society approximates to zero population growth, the older its population is likely to be - at least, for any future that concerns us now.

To these now familiar facts a number of further facts may be added, some of them only recently recognised. There is the apparent paradox that the effective cause of the high proportion of the old is births rather than deaths. There is the economic principle that the dependency ratio - the degree to which those who cannot earn depend for a living on those who can - is more advantageous in older societies like ours than in the younger societies of the developing world, because lots of dependent babies are more of a liability than numbers of the inactive aged. There is the appreciation of the salient historical truth that the aging or advanced societies has been a sudden change.

If "revolution" is a rapid resettlement of the social structure, and if the age composition of the society counts as a very important aspect of that social structure, then there has been a social revolution in European and particularly Western European society within the lifetime of everyone over 50. Taken together, these things have implications which are only beginning to be acknowledged. These facts and circumstances were well to the fore earlier this year at a world gathering about aging as a challenge to science and to policy, held at Vichy in France.

There is often resistance to the idea that it is because the birthrate fell earlier in Western and Northwestern Europe than elsewhere, rather than because of any change in the death rate, that we have grown so old. But this is what elementary demography makes clear. Long life is altering our society, of course, but in experiential terms. We have among us a very much greater experience of continued living than any society that has ever preceded us anywhere, and this will continue. But too much of that lengthened experience, even in the wealthy West, will be experience of poverty and neglect, unless we do something about it .

If you are now in your thirties, you ought to be aware that you can expect to live nearly one third of the rest of your life after the age of 60. The older you are now, of course, the greater this proportion will be, and greater still if you are a woman. Expectation of life is a slippery figure, very easy to get wrong at the highest ages. At Vichy the demographers were telling each other that their estimates of how many old there would be and how long they will live in countries like England and Wales are due for revision upwards.

我們不得不認(rèn)識(shí)到我們多大歲數(shù)了，有多老了。當(dāng)有7％或更多的65歲或65歲以上的人時(shí)，這些國(guó)家就被列為"老齡化"國(guó)家。到大約1970年，每一個(gè)發(fā)展國(guó)家就成了這樣的國(guó)家。65歲以上的人超過(guò)13％的真正的老年人社會(huì)，都在西北歐。20世紀(jì)80年代初，東德有15.6％的人超過(guò)65歲，在奧地利、瑞典、西德和法國(guó)，這個(gè)比率為13.4%或更高，英格蘭和威爾士有13.3%，蘇格蘭有12.3%，北愛(ài)爾蘭有10.8％，美國(guó)有9.9%。我們知道人類在日益變老，人口增長(zhǎng)率接近于零的社會(huì)離我們?cè)浇丝谠娇赡艹世淆g化的趨勢(shì)，至少就與影響我們的未來(lái)來(lái)說(shuō)是這樣的。

更多的現(xiàn)實(shí)，這其中有些只是近來(lái)才認(rèn)識(shí)到，可能會(huì)加入到這些熟悉的現(xiàn)實(shí)中。有這樣一個(gè)明顯的似是而非的論點(diǎn)：造成老年人比率高的實(shí)際原因是出生人數(shù)而不是死亡人數(shù)。有一條經(jīng)濟(jì)原則：撫養(yǎng)率――不能自食其力的人依靠能掙錢(qián)養(yǎng)家的人的程度――在我們這樣的更為老齡化的社會(huì)里比在發(fā)展中世界的較年輕社會(huì)里要有利一些，因?yàn)榇罅康臒o(wú)法獨(dú)立的孩子與一定數(shù)的喪失工作能力的老年人相比，更是個(gè)負(fù)擔(dān)。有對(duì)這樣一個(gè)明顯的歷史真實(shí)的正確評(píng)價(jià)：先進(jìn)社會(huì)的老齡化一直以來(lái)都是一種突變。

如果"革命"是對(duì)社會(huì)結(jié)構(gòu)的迅速重建，如果社會(huì)的年齡構(gòu)成被看作社會(huì)結(jié)構(gòu)的一個(gè)非常重要的方面，那么在歐洲，特別是每一個(gè)人的壽命超過(guò)50歲的西歐，已經(jīng)有一場(chǎng)革命。綜上所述，人們只是剛剛開(kāi)始認(rèn)識(shí)到這意味著什么。這些事實(shí)和情況早些時(shí)候在法國(guó)維希舉行的一個(gè)世界大會(huì)上被視為科學(xué)家和政策的挑戰(zhàn)而置于顯著的地位。

我們?nèi)丝诘睦淆g化，是因?yàn)樵谖鳉W和西北歐出生率比其他地方下降得早，百不是因?yàn)樗劳雎拾l(fā)生了一些變化。對(duì)這一觀點(diǎn)經(jīng)常有人不以為然，但這是通過(guò)基本的人口統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)澄清的事實(shí)。當(dāng)然，長(zhǎng)壽正改變著我們的社會(huì)，但這只是經(jīng)驗(yàn)論。我們之中有一種比先于我們的任何社會(huì)多得多的繼續(xù)生存的經(jīng)歷，這種經(jīng)歷將繼續(xù)下去。除非我們能在這方面采取措施，即使在富裕的西方，太多的這種經(jīng)歷將被，視為貧窮和荒廢的過(guò)去。你現(xiàn)年三十幾歲，你應(yīng)當(dāng)知道，你可以指望在活到60歲以后再活上差不多15年。現(xiàn)在你年紀(jì)越大，這個(gè)比例就越高。如果你是女性，這個(gè)比例還會(huì)更大。預(yù)期壽命不是一個(gè)固定數(shù)字，在最高年齡上很容易弄錯(cuò)。在維希，人口學(xué)家互相轉(zhuǎn)告，在像英格蘭和威爾士這些國(guó)家，他們對(duì)將有多少老人和他們能活多久的估計(jì)應(yīng)向上調(diào)整。