1 in 2 people are ageist - that’s an official statistic

I don’t particularly feel this is the case here in Australia but I know my parents who lived in the UK thought that, especially with regard to hospitals and the NHS. That was a while ago,though. There are more things to join and become part of here once you turn 60, a lot more than there are for 40-60 year olds. We are able to access services not available to younger people ( home care, garden help etc at discounted rates).

An interesting video. Thank you for drawing attention to it. I read the transcript, copy pasted it into a document and highlighted some of the key issues.

It’s a wide topic not least because globally, while the concerns about coping in old age are broadly the same, they also very different, for example, how do older people cope in a humanitarian crisis especially when there are few younger people around to help?

I was struck by the statistic that Ukraine has the largest percentage of older people affected by conflict of any single country of the world, because a quarter of the population is over 60. That’s the same percentage as the UK but we aren’t living under those terrible conditions and threat.

Neither are we living without easy access to water, food and other basic needs.

Nevertheless we are a country, at least some of it anyway, under increasing threat from flooding and heatwaves and the needs of older people in those situations do need to be considered.

What really struck me was the discussion about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Equality Act 2010. These are rights that certain political parties in the UK are seeking to remove from us. We need to be fighting against that.

Of Rebecca Solnit’s book No Straight Road Takes You There, Alison Marshall says:

Some of the stuff about taking the long view, about the cheerleaders of defeatism want us to take this short-term view and believe that the elite, those in Davos at the moment, are the ones with the power, are the ones who are going to determine the future. And she says part of the resistance has to be in not believing that.

We are told repeatedly that Britain is Broken. There are problems, no question of that, but broken? The same political parties who want to remove our humans rights are the same ones cheerleading defeatism.

On soft power. It’s over 20 years since the G8 ‘Make Poverty History’ summit of 2005. As Heather Stewart wrote in The Guardian last year, The 2008 crash, Trump, aid budget cuts and a more fragmented world has made debt relief seem a lost cause. The ODA budget has been cut with money “saved” redirected to defence.

www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/06/g8-make-poverty-history-summit-2005-debt-relief

Do I feel like society starts to "filter" our rights and needs as we get older?

I don’t know that I do. Compared to exploited-by-the-west and consequentially poor countries and those caught up in wars, I think the elderly are well looked after. We have regular pensions and healthcare however much some grumble about those things. We have laws that require service providers to make buildings and public transport accessible. We have support services through Age UK and similar providers.

Changing family lifestyles mean that older people can become isolated and lonely. I'm sure that is true the world over. Some don’t have family at all.

I am very aware of the campaigning work done by AWOC (Ageing WithOut Children). There is a government assumption that everyone has children to provide care and advocate for parents when they can no longer do so for themselves. Indeed, AWOC say that the majority of the 6.5 million carers in the UK are looking after either a parent or parent-in-law (or both).

But the number of people not having children by choice or circumstance is increasing - something like 1 in 4 (post WW2 it was 1 in 9). How to provide support for those who don’t have family is going to become an increasing issue. Those who have had children; they may have outlived them, be estranged or simply live at a geographical distance that makes caring impossible.

This AWOC blog - Who’s in my corner?

awoc.org.uk/category/blog/

The default assumption that there will be children around to help means that the reaction from care staff to those ageing without children is often one of surprise, as though they are strange and out of the ordinary. Respondents to AWOC surveys and discussions have referred to feeling “othered”, sometimes with the added implication that by not having children they have somehow failed in life. This in turn has led to some mistrusting a health and social care system that doesn’t have a solution for when there is no-one to support an individual, and even a reluctance to engage with it.

I have experienced this myself with day surgeries requiring full anaesthesia where there was an assumption that there would be someone at home to watch over me in the 24 hours afterwards. On both occasions when I said in the pre-op interview that there wasn’t, I encountered surprise from the interviewer and then an ensuing fuss over whether I could stay in hospital overnight or whether I would have to forego the very necessary procedures. It’s little things like this that can make ageing trickier to negotiate.

We are often our own worst enemies acuiescing when we we are dismissed or ignored.

If older people were prepared to be more assertive and insist on being served, heard or whatever it would be immensely helpful.

Womens began to be taken seriously when they became willing to speak up and insist they were treated fairly.

That’s very easy to say but if you are old and infirm, have no regular support and are put in a situation where you need say water, food, shelter and medicines in an emergency situation what happens then?

I’m reminded of what happened when Covid reached the UK and fit people rushed to the shops in their cars to strip the shelves of food. I remember Dawn Bilbrough, the critical care nurse who took to social media in tears to appeal to people to stop panic buying after she was unable to find basic food items.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmSPOSGpAYs&t=46s

I’m not someone who keeps a freezer full of food or a well-stocked larder beyond ingredients for bread making and herbs and spices. I don't eat ultra processed food. I eat a plant-based diet and cook from scratch so I buy fresh food little and often.

My neighbour then was 90 with limited mobility and had outlived her only child. She used to go out most days on the community bus which collected her from her door to go to the shops but that stopped operating.

I have an auto immune condition which was flaring then, take immuno-suppressants and was advised to shield but had no option but to go out to find food for both of us. All the supermarket delivery slots were already books for weeks.

But for kindly owners of small ethnic stores who supplied me with staples bought from the carry & carry so that I could batch cook for us both, I'm not sure what we would have done other than to ask neighbours to help. Not every has that.

I remember that she had run out of paracetamol for the regular pain relief she needed and the pharmacy was out of stock. I literally went knocking on neighbours' doors to scrounge pills from them to give to her.

In the UK we take for granted that we will always have these things on demand but that may not always be the case. In the event of an emergency it can take some days before support services can be mobilised to locate and help those who need it … and those days could be critical for someone unable to leave home.

We know now that the Tory goverment had failed to plan for such an emergency not just medically but logistically.

Baroness Hallett said ‘there will be a next time’, saying it ‘is not a question of if another pandemic will strike, but when’ as she emphasised the importance of improving resilience and preparedness.

‘Unless we are better prepared,’ she said. ‘It will bring with it immense suffering, a huge financial cost and the most vulnerable in society will suffer the most.’

We also have to be careful about the 'Dignity in Dying' issue, just in case, in a less benevolent future, assumptions might be made, and pressure asserted.

Graphite Thank you. Very interesting and this makes me realise just how unprepared the tories and now labour are for these imminent threats to those of us over a certain age, or indeed with disabilities.

I don't feel I have anything to complain about. State pension plus my work pension, mortgage paid, savings. During COVID Sainsbury's never let me down, when I got COVID and to ill to cook Iceland did a same day delivery. My GP is excellent. I have a dentist. My old work place invite me to events and regularly for lunch. My four kids visit/regularly. I feel I'm blessed.
Young people often offer to help me if I have bags on public transport.

I have just watched Steve Rosenberg's latest Youtube video in which an elderly Russian lady had walked to the shop for milk in the snow only to find there was none. She came back to find the lift to her apartment not working and so had to walk up several flights of stairs to her flat. She just shrugged her shoulders as if it was just another of those days.

It did make me realise how lucky I am.

Maremia

We also have to be careful about the 'Dignity in Dying' issue, just in case, in a less benevolent future, assumptions might be made, and pressure asserted.

I think that will inevitably happen. It hs happened with abortion.

Ageism has been rife for a long time it seems to me. It's one of many reasons I have no time for 'political correctness' which shields certain groups but not others. The attitude to the elderly is shocking, and many young people have utter contempt for us and think we - and our possessions - should simply get out of the way, leaving, of course, our hard-earned money to their far more deserving cause. (I do not speak, here, of my own children, except for one daughter in law who has made the odd remark...). As for Dignity in Dying in my view it's a good way to get rid of a load of us and the similar law in Canada is being frighteningly abused. I strongly oppose it, for although in principle I support the choice to die, in practice there are too few safeguards and many necessary ones have been scrapped from the proposed law.

I think it how you are perceived rather than your actual age about four years ago I had major aortic surgery and was on steroids. My replacement of both hips was delayed. I used crutches and a wheel chair, I also had a mobility scooter. During that time I felt invisible and some people almost talked in very simple language. Moving on with two new hips and back to normal mobility I no longer get treated an a patronising was Guess it’s how people perceive you

Yes, and I think Reform have jumped on the bandwagon and will scrap the 2010 Equality Act, they say, on day one. This removes all protections for people on account of our age and allows us to be treated differently to other age groups. Yippee! Not just the triple lock going but all sorts of services and rights.....This could even mean the end to NHS waiting lists but only because treatments and services can legally be denied to older people!

What!!!!!

Jess20

Yes, and I think Reform have jumped on the bandwagon and will scrap the 2010 Equality Act, they say, on day one. This removes all protections for people on account of our age and allows us to be treated differently to other age groups. Yippee! Not just the triple lock going but all sorts of services and rights.....This could even mean the end to NHS waiting lists but only because treatments and services can legally be denied to older people!

It makes you wonder how they are popular. The elderly, women, ethnic minorities, disabled all at risk with the end of the Equality Act. If they get in it's turkeys voting for Christmas.

Apologies if I've forgotten other groups.

I moved where I live 17 years ago. We downsized albeit to a 4 bed detached but by comparison it was half the size of our old property. I remember the assistant in the sales office of the site
laughing when on answering her query on why we wanted a 4 bed when there was only two of us, I replied given the size of the house we were only getting 4 sleeping
compartments for when family, who lived far and wide, visited. Within 5 years we had been told by a couple of residents that we shouldn't be living here as we were old and the houses
were meant for the young and
families. Another told me I should be
in a home! Yes, ageism is rife.

Gwyllt

I think it how you are perceived rather than your actual age about four years ago I had major aortic surgery and was on steroids. My replacement of both hips was delayed. I used crutches and a wheel chair, I also had a mobility scooter. During that time I felt invisible and some people almost talked in very simple language. Moving on with two new hips and back to normal mobility I no longer get treated an a patronising was Guess it’s how people perceive you

I agree about perception; at times I need to use a walking stick and experience what you describe, that slightly patronising ‘old dear’ attitude from some people.
Generally I think/hope they’re trying to be helpful but it’s their manner that grates.

When it comes to Gen Z they're almost all ageist, plus quite a few older millenials. They blame Boomers and Gen X for all the World's woes