VOLUME 11, NUMBER 3, 2008

Migrations and Ageing: Female Migrants in Slovenia
Sanja Cukut

Ageing of the population and international migration are perceived by researchers and population experts as crucial to changes in the population composition that have occurred in Europe in the last decades. It is to be expected that the number of older migrants will continue to increase in the future. For this reason, the author examines, by using semi-structured life-history interviews, the experiences of female migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former Soviet Union. She focuses on implications of their labour market position for their old age and retirement and on the expectations they have towards their own ageing. Insisting that some older migrants might have specific needs the author attempts to identify the main challenges that pertain to the integration of older migrants into the society. She argues against essentialisation of older migrants and calls for studying the diversity of their social positions.

Key words: migration, Slovenia, ageing, women, integration.

Non-Surgical Cosmetic Procedures: Older Women’s Perceptionsand Experiences
Laura Hurd Clarke, Robin Repta, Meridith Griffin

This paper analyzes findings from in-depth interviews with 44 women aged 50-70 regarding their perceptions of and experiences with non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as Botox injections, laser hair removal, chemical peels, microdermabrasion, and injectable fillers. While 21 of the women had used a range of non-surgical cosmetic procedures, 23 women had not. The data are discussed in light of feminist theorizing on cosmetic surgery which has tended to ignore the experiences of older women and has been divided in terms of the portrayal of cosmetic surgery as either oppressive or liberating. We found that some of the women used the procedures to increase their physical attractiveness and self-esteem, others viewed the procedures as excessively risky, and still others argued that the procedures stemmed from the social devaluation of later life.
Treatments that involved the alteration of the surface of the body tended to be viewed as less risky than the injection of foreign substances into the body.

Key words: ageism, feminist theory, non-surgical cosmetic procedures, lived experience, older women, qualitative methodology.

Longevity, long-term care and ethics of intergenerational relations
Božidar Voljč

The global aging of the population prolongs years of healthy and active life, however it increases the number of chronically aged people as well. The changed structure of modern families makes the care for the aged family members more strenuous. Such care must be organised as a public system for long term care performed by educated health and social staff with the support of local and governmental activities. The growing needs for long term care will not be satisfied only with the existing legal and institutional intergenerational arrangements, it will be necessary to activate the knowledge and experiences of the older generation. Thus emerges the need for a reevaluation of the intergenerational ethical values such as solidarity, respect of life, personal freedom and humanity.

Key words: longevity, family, long-term care, health and social security, intergenerational relations and ethics, quality of life.

Bioethics and old age
Anton Mlinar

Bioethics is the ethic whose inner logic is based on life. The fundamental approach to the questions related to human life and the lives of other beings is also used in the field of old age and ageing. Its moral-philosophical and ethological frame obliges it to give main concerns to a man as a whole and to look specific periods of human life as a whole. On the other hand it is bonded to constantly follow the events in the life sciences that are inconceivably flourishing in the last decades and to acknowledge the autonomy of the individual fields of human behaviour. The article gives one view of the relationship among bioethics and sciences interested in human and biological ageing, and also the example of the cohesion between the scientific data on one side and the ethical engagement to a human being on the other side.

Key words: bioethics, biogerontology, biology of ageing, ethical behaviour, evolution, relation anthropology, old age.