Liguria has the oldest age structure in Europe because of a low birth rate and long lifespans and therefore is a very interesting laboratory region in which to experiment with active ageing policies. The generations that are now approaching retirement hold a high level of personal and professional resources; so the "new" elderly people…

Throughout the twentieth century the population of the United States, as indeed the rest of the world, was growing older. Since 1900 the percentage of Americans 65 years of age and older has more than tripled (from 4 percent in 1900 to 13 percent in 2009), and the number has increased from 3 million to 40 million. "Between 2010 and 2050, the…

In today's self-directed marketplace, individuals are responsible for making their own complex decisions regarding retirement. Seeking counsel, many turn to professionals for advice or education or both. The evidence however, suggests that these interactions often fail to deliver on the goals of improved knowledge, satisfaction, or behavior.…

Over the period of this journal's life the education of adults has been changed and developed in a wide variety of ways: the same phenomenon--adult learning--has been given a variety of meanings and the education of adults has assumed many titles. The aim of this paper is to unravel some of the changes that have occurred in this field during this…

Attention is directed to the ethical responsibility for the counselor to develop a professional will. Essentially the professional will is a roadmap for what the counselor directs to happen in the event that the counselor becomes incapacitated due to sudden death or illness. A model of a professional will is provided.

Lifelong learning programs for older adults are expanding in university communities, given the growing emphasis on successful aging in our society. This dissertation consists of two articles that examine data from ethnographic research in a southeastern lifelong learning institute associated with a state university. Data include observations over…

This dissertation is an examination of the perceptions offered by adults who self-identify as being successfully retired. The increase in the percentage of the retiring population in the United States in the immediate future alerts us to the need to identify strategies that have been reported by retirees to successfully transition into retirement.…

Demographic trends in Russia make it necessary to prepare people to work beyond retirement age in an economy that is different from the one they were trained for, and younger people need to be prepared for employment in more information-driven occupations. Both trends require a strong program of life-long learning, but Russia has not yet put an…

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the link between age and proficiency in information-processing skills, based on information drawn from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). The data reveal significant age-related differences in proficiencies, strongly suggesting that proficiency tends to "naturally" decline with age. Age…

The objectives were to describe the stated motives of participants who enrolled in a program at the Open University for the Elderly (UnATI, in Portuguese), identify correlations between the stated motives and sociodemographic data, and find a set of predictors related to the listed motives. A total of 306 middle-aged and elderly adults aged 50 or…

Seven men and women with an average age of 77 were interviewed regarding the role of wisdom in their experience of attending a Learning in Retirement Institute (LRI) in southern Ontario, Canada. A finding is that for wisdom gains to be an outcome of LRI education, older adult students need outward expression of their acquired learnings. A…

There is a large and robust correlation between adult health and education, part of which likely reflects causality running from education into health. Less clear is whether education obtained later in life is as valuable for health as are earlier years of schooling, or whether education raises health directly or through income or wealth. In this…

The purpose of this study was to determine if there was sufficient emphasis on senior college programming in New Mexico public higher education institutions and if that programming should be formalized. It was suggested that an initiative among New Mexico higher education institutions be undertaken to create a statewide network for senior college…

The author's father left school aged 13 at the start of the Great Depression. When he finally found work the wealth of educational opportunity he encountered inspired him with a lifelong love of learning. He signed up for evening classes and loved anything and everything to do with what he proudly called self-improvement. As a novice to retirement…

The lengthening span of retirement, combined with projections of a growing aging population, has made the retirement population an increasingly important consumer group in education (Van der Kamp & Scheeren, 1997). In the 1960s, educational programming efforts for seniors were grounded in assumptions of decline. These assumptions, and a life…