Empowering Older People An International Approach

Empowerment is an essential ingredient to achieving self-respect and purpose. The empowerment individual is able to make informed choices, exercise influence, take advantage of good services and generally contribute to society in a meaningful way. Yet such rights are often not available to older people for a variety of reasons, including poverty, ill health, low educational levels, poor access to services, and overt or subtle age discrimination. Empowering Older People presents views and research written by experts in aging from around the world. Contributions look at the need to ensure older people have control over their own lives and discuss any positive measures which are being taken to provide real opportunities and resources for the older populations. Empowerment is vital to older people's quality of life and to the health of any society, and an international perspective on the issue will inform all who work with older people. In this edited volume, the countries represented by contributors include Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ireland, India, Japan, Mexico, Pakistan, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the U.S.