The concept of active ageing is a relative newcomer in Europe, achieving
widespread currency only in the past five years (largely owing to the ef-
forts of the WHO). Its pedigree in the United States is much longer and can
be traced back to the early 1960s when it was argued that the key to “suc-
cessful ageing” (Pfeiffer, 1974; Rowe and Kahn, 1987) was the maintenance
in old age of the activity patterns and values typical of middle age
(Havighurst, 1954, 1963; Havighurst and Albrecht, 1953). In other words,
successful ageing was to be achieved by denying the onset of old age and
by replacing those relationships, activities and roles of middle age that are
lost with new ones in order to maintain activities and life satisfaction. This
theory of ageing was seen partly as a response to the then influential theory
of “disengagement”, which viewed old age as an inevitable period of with-
drawal from roles and relationships (Cumming and Henry, 1961).