GR: Teen, Adult |
RT: Approx. 60 Min. Ea. |
Titles: 2 |
$39.95
DVD SERIES: $79.90
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Today, one in ten people are over age 60. By 2050 it will be one in five. In some developed countries there are so many elderly people and so few births that the population is actually dying off. Some experts predict our worst nightmares could be just around the corner – a society of frail, chronically ill old people which, coupled with declining birth rates in the West, may mean there simply won’t be enough young people around to foot the bill. But others say that increased life expectancy and lower birth rates are a remarkable success story that enables people in the developed world to live healthier and more productive lives.
This powerful two-part series explores the dramatic challenges we now face and looks into the future of what former US President Jimmy Carter has called “the most important and controversial issue of the millennium”. The series questions our values, our culture, and what sort of a society we want to live in.
Titles include:
Missing Children
This opening episode takes us to four countries all grappling with declining birthrates and potential economic decline. Catholic Italy: a country with one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, Japan: where there are now more dogs than young children, Australia: where careerism has spawned a multi-million dollar dating industry, and in China: where the government’s ‘one-child’ policy has taken the country from one extreme to another within a single generation.
Grey Tsunami
The second episode takes us into the lives of people across the world already impacted by the inevitable march of global ageing. We go to China to investigate the plight of the elderly in the countryside; Australia, to meet the ‘sandwich generation’ which finds itself trapped between caring for both grown up children and frail parents; to Japan who are looking to robots rather than immigrants to care for their senior citizens; and to Italy, the country which for generations sent its own workers abroad, and who now depend on illegal immigrants to care for its elderly.