Enlarging the frame: Issues of Inclusion and mental health in an ageing society

This contribution frames the notions of inclusion and mental health by describing trends in European societies at the social and economic level that will have direct consequences for a participative civil society and social cohesion. Our starting point is the observation that the world faces challenges at the start of the 21st century that are new and unprecedented in its history. The four global forces that break all the trends known so far in human history include urbanisation, accelerating technological development, greater global connections, and population ageing (Dobbs, Manyika and Woetzel, 2016). We will first describe the scale of population ageing, as ageing populutions characterize several developed economies. In a second step, we will highlight some consequences of population ageing for social welfare and in a third part I will elaborate on the notion of justice and inclusion in rapidly changing societies.