The book puts forward an original proposal of a tridimensional structure for the gerontological programmes embedded in the aims and challenges of public policy towards old age and the elderly. The new architecture of those programmes fills in the space between the political promises of the power elites and the social expectations and actual capacities of the state managing the needs of a society characterised by an aging demographic structure.

Zbigniew Wozniak is full professor in the Institute of Sociology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan.