The extended life course. Reflections on a multidisciplinary European symposium in Berlin, 26-28 November 1986.

This was not primarily meant to be another symposium on ageing, as is made clear by its subtitle "Consequences for our living together, or: are we becoming a society of single beings?". The focus was on both the fundamental transitions witnessed in the life course in the last three to four centuries from an uncertain to a virtually secure lifespan, as well as on the effects this has had on our living together. Thirty speakers from various parts of Europe met at the Friedrich-MeineckeInstitute of the Free University in West Berlin for a three-day conference about these issues. On the one hand, a number of academic disciplines were represented; above all history, medicine, biology, genetics, sociology, psychology, European ethnology, and theology. On the other hand, specialists were drawn from practical fields: federal and state statisticians for the hard demographic facts, representatives from continuing education programmes, ministers for health and health education, hospital and spiritual advisers, and counsellors for the dying. In addition, thirty postgraduate students were given the opportunity to take part in the proceedings as well as in a three-week preparatory course. This report is aimed, more in keeping with the tone of the symposium, at stimulating the personal reflections of the reader on this topic than at merely reporting specific research results about it. Hence, neither the individual papers nor the lectures are specifically cited in this account. In Figure 1, I have attempted to summarize the basic concepts presented at the conference along with what were, in my opinion, the most important contributions to the discussion. The three illustrations on the left side of the figure represent the conditions from "earlier". The historical demographers and medical historians in attendance agreed not to refer to examples before the year 1680, due to the lack of reliable sources (e.g., parish registers for calculating ages, specific death rates, and life expectancies; or missing medical topographies for qualitative interpretations as to the causes of death,