In designing policies, we must look forward at their impact in our older age, but also look back and respond to older people’s diverse past experiences to ensure we achieve the 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals and the commitment to ‘leave no one behind’.
From the moment we are born, we all begin ageing. This is the start of a complex and varied lifecourse. Each of us lives through different events, we make choices, we face the consequences of policies and systems, and of intersecting forms of discrimination that influence our lives. As we grow older, the impact of these different experiences on our life accumulates.
The characters in the animation featured here experienced complex and varied lifecourses. Events, choices, policies and discrimination impacted them at the time, but also long into their future. As they grew older, their age also intersected with other characteristics of their identity, which meant they faced complex and unique forms of marginalisation and discrimination in older age.
