The press is constantly reminding us that the dramatic increase in the age of our population over the next 30 or so years will cause national healthcare systems to collapse, economies to crumple under the strain of pension demands and disintegrating families to buckle under increasing care commitments. Yet research at Oxford is beginning to expose some of the widespread myths that underlie this rhetoric. Demographic aging is undoubtedly a reality. Life expectancy in developed countries has risen continuously over the past century, increasing the percentage of those over the age of 60 relative to those under the age of 15. By 2030 half the population of Western Europe will be over the age of 50, with a predicted average life expectancy of a further 40 years. By then, a quarter of the population will be over 65 and by 2050 the UK’s current numbers of 10,000 centenarians are predicted to have reached a quarter of a million. Some demographers have even suggested that half of all baby girls bom in the West today will live to see the next century.（1）Indeed, if this could be achieved throughout the world, it would surely count as the success of civilization, for then we would also have conquered the killers of poverty, disease, famine and war.Decreasing mortality rates increasing longevity and declining fertility mean smaller percentages of young people within populations. Over the past 20 years life expectancy at birth in the UK has risen by four years for men (to 75) and three years for women (to 80). Meanwhile fertility rates across Europe have declined more or less continuously over the past 40 years and remain well below the levels required for European populations to be able to replace themselves without substantive immigration. But again, rather than seeing this as a doom and gloom scenario, we need to explore the positive aspects of these demographics. The next 50 years should provide us with all opportunity to enjoy the many advantages of a society with a mature population structure.（2）The first of these is the current political rhetoric which claims that health services across the Western World are collapsing under the strain of demographic ageing.（3）The second myth is the view that the ratio of workers to non-workers will become so acute that Western economies will collapse, compounded by a massive growth in pension debt, While there are undoubted concerns over current pension shortfalls, it is also clear that working lives will themselves change over the next few decades, with a predicted increase in flexible and part. Time work and the probable extension of working life until the age of 70. Indeed, we have to recognize that we cannot expect to retire at the age of 50 and then be able to support ourselves for another 40 or so year. Neither a solid pension scheme nor savings can carry people that long.（4）A further myth is that we will all live in loose, multigenerational families, experiencing increased emotional distancing from our kin. Evidence from a variety of studies across the developed world suggests that, if anything, the modern family is actually becoming more close-knit. Work carried out by the Oxford Institute in Scandinavia and in a Pan-European Family Care Study, for example, shows that despite the influence of the welfare state, over the past 10 years, people have come to value family relationships more than previously.（5）In the developed world therefore, we can see actual benefits from population aging: a better balance between age groups, mature and less volatile societies, with an emphasis on age integration. The issues will be very different in other parts of the world.Herein lays another myth: that the less developed world will escape form demographic aging. Instead, the massive increase in the age of populations facing these countries-predicted to be up to one billion older people within 30 years - is potentially devastating. The problem is not only that demographic aging is occurring at a far greater pace than we have seen in Western nations, but also that few if any developing countries have