Productive Engagement in Later Life: A Global Perspective

As birth rates have declined and life expectancy have grown, older adults have come to represent increasingly large shares of populations around the globe. These trends heighten the importance of productive aging—the continued engagement of older adults in employment, education, caregiving, volunteering, and other aspects of society. The aging of the population, and the place of older adults in society, are key issues in China. An estimated 248 million Chinese adults will be over age 60 in the year 2020. Motivated by these trends, experts from Shandong University and the Center for Social Development organized a 2009 conference to advance research and policy on productive aging. A conference report was subsequently released, and the chapters in this book developed from the 2009 conference papers, which were originally published in Productive Ageing and China: Perspectives from East Asia and Abroad, a special issue of the China Journal of Social Work. The book also has been published in Chinese.