Demographic and social factors

| Interpersonal relationships, both professional and social, change due to retirement.

The aging of individuals is reflected in the society in which they live. In advanced societies, gradually since the industrial revolution and accelerated since the beginning of the 20th century, an increase in the proportion of people over 65 years of age due to increased life expectancy and improved hygiene, health, and nutrition , labor, etc. This, together with the decrease in the birth rate, makes the average age of the population higher than in previous centuries.

In Spain the population over 65 it is currently 7 times more numerous than a hundred years ago and represents about 17% of the total population. Within this group, those over 80 years of age are increasingly important; It is the aging of aging. If it continues at this rate, it is expected that by 2050 those over 65 will represent 31% of the total population.

Economic consequences

This aging of the population has several consequences; The first is the increase in dependence on societies, that is to say that each active person has more people who depend on them, both directly and indirectly through taxes. The money collected with the taxes of the workers, which will be proportionally less numerous, will have to distributed for pensions and care of the elderly, which will be more and more abundant. This will be the case if the tax and pension system remains the same as before and if demographic trends do not change.

But the aging of the population not only has consequences for the economy, it also has consequences for effective care burdens; that is, as there are more elderly people, it is assumed that there will be more dependents who should receive care. Other demographic aspects to take into account in relation to old age are the sex and marital status. Currently, there are a million more women than men among those over 65 years of age, and in octogenarians the difference is even greater: 2 out of every 3 people over 80 years of age are women. With regard to marital status, more than 50% of women over 70 years of age are widows and live alone, while more than 75% of men of this age are married and live with their partners.

Geographical distribution

The geographical distribution of aging can also give us many clues to understand the social consequences of it. The older population is fundamentally urban, but rural areas are the ones with the highest percentage of older people. In other words, in absolute numbers there are more elderly people in cities, but in towns, a large part of its inhabitants are elderly. This is very important when planning for social service needs.

With age, older people lose contacts and social fabric, due to the death of relatives and contemporary friends, children who become independent (empty nest), limitations, increased dependence on themselves and on other individuals in their environment, etc. The loss of income with retirement is relevant, which also disrupts the use of time and the perception of place in society (loss of the work role).

And, of course, the difficulty to adapt to technological changes, which in the last 50 years have maintained exponential growth; It is difficult for a person who was born with operator phones to understand the latest mobile phone equipment, and if they witnessed the birth of television, they are no longer able to follow the evolution of the internet and its applications.

The tendency of older people to become more introverted is primarily due to two sets of causes:

• one of them is simply the stress of recent years, introversion being the result of despair and depression, as well as the primary lack of a social network. It would be a kind of reaction like that of the fox in the fable: "I don't want them, they are not ripe."
• another is a consequence of the discovery of the richness of the inner world and the reduced need to respond to social demands through success and participation.

This desocialization is registered as one of the main problems perceived by older people. According to several studies, social maladjustment affects men with greater intensity, who demand greater social contacts, while women depend more on family contacts.

Social withdrawal, although in principle it can start on the part of the elderly, is often increased by the indifference of the environment, which leads to the appearance of dependency on the elderly. Breaking this isolation in an adapted and compensated way is a basic challenge for a socially healthy aging.