Thread Subject: Re: Ageing as disability

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From: William Loughborough
Date: Mon, Mar 12 2007 1:00 PM

Yamada@TOYO-UNIV wrote:
> In Japan, we developed ICT accessibility standards not only for persons with
> disabilities but also for "older persons." Therefore, Japanese standards
> include various recommendations that are useful by older persons.
>
> The reason that Japan includes older persons is very simple. The number and
> the ratio of older persons are increasing year by year in Japan. Now, people
> over age 65 consist of 20% or more of population. Japan cannot develop
> Information Society, if we ignore older persons.
>
This whole issue has very far-reaching consequences because in U.S. (and
almost everywhere) there are concepts of "retirement" and "employment"
that are based on various societal/religious considerations that are
rapidly disappearing. For example here the idea of "health insurance" is
bound up with the idea of "employment"! The concept of "retirement" is
based on similar unrealistic concepts as most people my age will tell
you: we often are more "employed" after "retirement age" than ever
before, but we still get the exclusions of any disability group.

The point is that "disability" is not decided by a think tank (though it
is usually defined thereby!) but by societal behaviors. We had a
president for a long time who was considered "disabled" (or would have
been if he hadn't hidden his wheelchair!) and he got quite a bit
accomplished.

Love.

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