This article is based upon a chapter in a book to be called Britain! Be Your Age! It begins with a discussion of schemes for dividing the life-course, describes the fresh division to which the title the Third Age belongs and refers briefly to a general theory of the Third Age. It is claimed that the Third Age as thus defined did not emerge in Britain and other Western countries until the 1950s, nor did it become a settled feature of their social structures until the 1980s. Expectation of life in a number of countries, developed and developing, is contrasted, and a comparison is undertaken between life expectation in the contemporary Third World and that in England in the historical past, that is since the early 16th century. It is concluded that contemporary developing societies have much longer life expectation than that in the English past, but markedly fewer elderly people. The implications of this for the modernisation theory in relation to ageing are drawn out, and the concept of modernisation shown to be unacceptable to historical sociologists. A Third Age Indicator (3AI) is then suggested, expressing the probability of a person of 25 years attaining 70 years. The Third Age is defined demographically in a two-fold way, as a condition of a population in which the general expectation of living from 25 to 70 is 0.5 or over for men, and so more for women, and of 10% or more of the whole population being over age 65. 3AIs for a number of contemporary countries are then presented, along with those for England since the 1540s. A list of countries demographically qualified on the two counts is then drawn up, along with the appropriate dates of their attaining that status.

From the confrontation of fiscal austerity and growing needs in the United Kingdom has come a new ideology: ‘efficiency-focused mana-gerialism’. Common arguments and the adaptation of structures to reflect them can be seen in all areas of policy, but nowhere more clearly than in the long-term social care of the elderly, the subject of this paper. Perhaps the strand of policy analysis which most influences and epitomises the new managerialism is the work of the Audit Commission for Local Authorities in England and Wales, whose arguments and proposals have gained great and widespread influence. The commission's ‘three Es’ – economy, efficiency and effectiveness – have become among the most fashionable slogans of our time.

The characteristic features of institutional life can be found in all types of long-term hospitals and homes for old people. They occur in all countries despite radical differences in the structure of health and social care provision. This paper draws upon data from a study of British residential homes to present an account of institutional life from the consumers' perspective. Residents' views are drawn from open-ended interviews with 60 residents. They convey a complex mixture of feelings: gratitude, resentment, resignation, powerlessness, acceptance and dependence. The common expressions of boredom and loneliness reflect a poor quality of life for many residents. A surprising degree of tolerance was shown by lucid people towards those who had become confused. The authors argue that elderly residents are faced with a choice between an unpleasant battle to survive in their own homes and an equally unpleasant enforced dependence in the institution. The views of residents ought to be an important factor in the evaluation of institutional care.

The ‘person–object relations’ of the elderly has yet to be fully exploited as an opportunity for gerontological research and insight. We have yet to examine in any exhaustive way how elderly people treat consumer goods and consumption activities as sources of cultural meaning, and how they manipulate this meaning in order to accomplish certain kinds of social and cultural work in their lives. The object of the present paper is to review the emerging field of person–object studies and to note three of the research objectives that emerge from it for the study of people in later life. It will examine the way in which they use objects (1) for mnemonic (aide-mémoire) purposes, (2) to negotiate transitions in self and status definition, and (3) as instruments of cross-generational influence. Each of these questions will be discussed with illustrative material from an ethnographic research project now in progress. Practical implications of each question are noted.