one - Introduction

Summary

Today, for the first time in history, most people throughout the world can expect to live into their 60s and beyond. However, not only are people living longer but the world in which they are doing so has undergone a number of radical changes. Urbanisation has transformed the ways in which people live and today the majority of the world's population lives in cities. Not only has the way we live changed but so too has the way we work. Large parts of the developing world have become heavily industrialised drawing people away from agricultural labour into the factories. At the same time across the middle and higher income countries the loss of these industrial jobs and the rapid rise of the service sector has created new jobs and new, often precarious, ways of working. In both cases workers across the world are increasingly believed to be caught up in the global economic flows of trade and investment that encircle the world and bind countries together as part of a global market. Advances in transportation and communications have also appeared to shrink the world around us. Email and video calls make it possible to instantly speak to people thousands of miles away. Satellite television and internet streaming make it possible to watch foreign TV, news or sporting events from your home or even on the move. This movement of images and things is mirrored by the movement of people. Cheap flights have made it possible for many in the high income countries to explore the world, while millions of people are forced to migrate to escape war and poverty throughout other parts of the world. Alongside these changes there have been a number of global socioeconomic developments. On the one hand the world is now a wealthier place than it was in the past. On the other hand, it is also a more economically unequal place than at any time in recent history. It has been estimated that as few as 62 super rich individuals now hold as much wealth as the world's poorest 50% (Oxfam International 2015). All of these trends point to the importance of the changing nature of space to understand the world in which we are ageing.