Elderly people as “apocalyptic demography”? A study of the life stories of older people in Hong Kong born in the 1930s Jackie Yan Chi Kwok a, ⁎, Ben Hok Bun Ku b a School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China b Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China article info abstract Article history: Received 21 May 2014 Received in revised form 13 November 2015 Accepted 13 November 2015 Available online xxxx In Hong Kong, the general view still follows the biomedical discourse to define aging. The government and leading gerontologists follow the prevailing representation of elderly and describe growing old as a process of becoming “frail, infirm, and vulnerable” (Fealy et al., 2012: 91). Discussions of demographic trends often focus on the drastic effects of an aging society on economic development. Our research indicates that Hong Kong's construction of aging is a product of its market-driven economy. Drawing from the life stories of eight participants born in the 1930s, we examine the meaning of aging and the formation of character in a specific historical context, adopting the life-course perspective. We wish to understand how larger movements in the social and political world shaped the experiences of the participants and the strategies they developed to maintain agency and control in life. The participants in our study struggled for survival through unprecedented political disasters and social turmoil in their youth. When they reached maturity in the 1960s and 1970s, they devoted themselves to bettering their lives and contributed to the economic boom of the city. We maintain that the biomedical model offers a reductive and unjust means of viewing the people in this cohort, who are often seen as a problem and a burden. Challenging the prevailing ageist attitude, we set the life stories of the participants against the dominant biomedical model of aging. Our work aims to establish a just description of the life experiences of Hong Kong people. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Keywords: Aging Biomedical model Life-course approach Life stories Hong Kong history Hong Kong society Introduction It is projected that 26% of the Hong Kong population will be aged 65 or older in 2031 (Hong Kong Population Projection, 2012). The effect of this population trend is typically repre- sented negatively. Most discussions dwell on the drastic effects of an aging society on economic development. On March 11, 2013, South China Morning Post described the “rapidly aging population” as a “long-term financial burden.” On December 29, 2013, in his official blog, Hong Kong's financial secretary, John Tsang, warned that, “with the coming of an aging society, Hong Kong will utilize its fiscal reserves.” He maintained that an aging population would lead to a reduction of the population in the labor force, a slowing of economic growth, and an increase in government expenditure. In recent years, the annual chief executive policy addresses have emphasized the heavy demands made by an elderly population on nursing homes and welfare services. Many local gerontologists – medical professionals, psychol- ogists, and social workers – have accepted the prevailing representation of elderly and view growing old as a process of becoming “frail, infirm, and vulnerable.”(Fealy et al., 2012: 91) They consider that an aging demographic will pose “a severe challenge to Hong Kong in the future, involving huge economic costs in medical and health care services, social welfare services, social security, among others” (Chan & Liang, 2013: 29); it not only affects “the labor and economic growth rate, but also impacts overall strategic economic planning and allocation of resources” (Chan & Liang, 2013: 30). Journal of Aging Studies 36 (2016) 1–9 ⁎ Corresponding author. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2015.11.001 0890-4065/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Aging Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaging