CHAPTER 2
Where Have The Children Gone?
The ageing of individuals has been a common human experience but the ageing of nations is a new development. We have no knowledge of any large human community that had aged, and therefore this social development generally escaped our attention in the earlier decades. But we cannot remain unmindful of it any more.
GREYING
Average human longevity probably remained fairly unchanged for thousands of years and even in imperial Rome the life expectancy was perhaps no better than a little over 20 years. The European figure did not increase in the next thousand years. In the meantime, human society passed through a complex series of progress and failure till the end of the middle ages. Thereafter the advanced ...
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