In this book, pressing questions regarding ageing societies in Europe will be explored from a historical, sociological and legal perspective. As a response to these questions, ‘elder law’ has developed over recent decades as a new field of law, in particular in common law countries such as the United States. In Europe such a development has not yet become clearly visible, but the challenges that ageing poses for the law as well as for other scientific disciplines are a topic of research in many universities and institutions. One could argue that researching ‘old age’ as a social risk requires a combination of expertise from different disciplines and from different fields of law.

Elder law is an area of law that is very broad in its scope and defined by the age of persons. In many areas of law, age is a legally relevant fact which attracts legal consequences. Age, in combination with improved medical options, boils down to questions which are not new as such, but the extent to which they are dealt with nowadays in science in general, and in the legal field in particular, is unprecedented in history. The large scale and impact of the societal and legal issues related to older age seemingly put our current welfare systems under strain. High costs are involved, not only because older persons do not (have to) earn a living and are financed by the state, but also because they are on average in need of more (expensive) care. Taken together with diminished public budgets and a retreat of the welfare state, problems might arise. On the other hand, from the perspective of older persons who might in the future suffer from several vulnerabilities related to older age, the question arises: what can the law do to promote their best interests and how do we, as a society, deal with vulnerabilities connected to an older age? These questions also imply an allocation of responsibilities between different actors: what is the role of the state, and what is the role of the family or the individual?