On December 5th, 2013, the Institute for Public Affairs released a new publication Štvrtý rozmer tretieho veku. Desať kapitol o aktívnom starnutí (The Fourth Dimension of the Third Age. Ten Chapters on Active Ageing) edited by Zora Bútorová. The team of authors includes Zora Bútorová, Jarmila Filadelfiová, Bernardína Bodnárová, Peter Guráň, and Sylvia Šumšalová.
Similarly to the other EU member states, Slovakia is experiencing intensive population ageing. At the same time the country lags behind in using the potential of the older population.
The authors of the publication offer a sociological perspective to help better understanding of the importance of active ageing in Slovakia. They pay special attention to the life situation of people aged 45-64, who are either approaching the threshold of the third age or have already passed this important milestone.
The book provides a wealth of facts and information to shed light on why the country lags behind in using the untapped potential of older people and on the possibilities of positive change. Hard data include demographic and economic statistics; soft data draw from local and international sociological studies.
The authors offer their findings to a wide range of readers – politicians, employers, trade unions, media, social workers, educators and students, nongovernmental organizations, researchers, as well as general public – to all those individuals and institutions who care about the quality and dignity of life of Slovakia’s people in every phase of their life. They believe that their book could contribute to enhancing the quality of public discourse about the rights of older people and to promoting the concept of active ageing in Slovakia.
The new book is written in Slovak and has an extensive English summary. The analysis encompasses the following chapters:
- Older people among us: Equality of opportunities or discrimination?
- Facts that won’t let go: How does Slovakia’s population age
- Health and age: for healthier ageing
- Life phases and age in the eyes of the public
- Age and retirement
- Older people and work
- Chances of older people on the labor market
- Passing the threshold of third age
- Older people and the private sphere
- The concept of active ageing in public perception
The book cover features the painting Pedestrians by a leading Slovak artist Ester Šimerová-Martinčeková (1976). The publication closes with a short essay about the painter by art historian Zuzana Bartošová.
The publication completes two projects by the Institute for Public Affairs that had been supported by the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic within the grant scheme Support to and Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms (2011 – 2013). The first project, Older Age and Human Rights: More Participation, Less Discrimination collected empirical sociological data of both qualitative and quantitative character. The second project, Enhancing the Rights of Older People and Utilizing Their Potential through Active Ageing updated the available data and laid foundations for the present publication.
To download the publication, visit our Books section on the web.
To order the publication, please contact us.
