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| Acknowledgements | |
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| Living too Long? | |
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| Introduction | |
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| The social context of ageing and geronticide | |
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| Is longer life possible? | |
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| Science and increasing the lifespan | |
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| Ageing and decline: Consequences of extending the lifespan | |
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| Outline of the book | |
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| Geronticide and the elderly: Definitions | |
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| Death by Demography and Longevity | |
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| The problem of longevity | |
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| Population ageing in Western society | |
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| Non-industrial societies and the demographic time-bomb | |
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| The dependency ratio and the social crisis | |
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| Gender and the demography of ageing | |
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| Social class and demography | |
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| Ethnicity and the ageing population | |
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| Demography and a finite food supply | |
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| The social costs of the increasing elderly dependent population | |
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| The cost of care | |
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| Death-hastening by rationing | |
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| Depression and self-killing amongst the elderly | |
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| Limitations to the demographic time bomb thesis | |
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| Responding to the critics | |
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| Continuity in geronticide | |
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| Death by Social Obligation: The Political Economy Thesis | |
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| Political economy: The elderly as non-producers | |
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| Insights from patriarchy and Marxist studies | |
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| Nostalgia over primitive society | |
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| The hunter-gatherer thesis | |
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| The young-old versus the old-old | |
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| Death-hastening in primitive society | |
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| Ritual demarcation allowing geronticide: Concluding liminal status | |
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| The liminal status passage | |
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| Infanticide and geronticide | |
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| Criticisms of political economy | |
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| Death by Attrition: Modernisation and the Workhouse | |
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| Introduction | |
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| The modernisation process | |
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| Modernisation and social differentiation | |
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| Modernisation and convergence | |
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| Ageist ideology's contribution to death-hastening | |
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| The critique: Social history as uneven | |
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| Inequality and uneven exposure to death-hastening | |
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| Death by Degrees: Bureaucratisation in Care Institutions | |
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| Introduction: The bureaucratisation of death | |
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| Dying in 'care' | |
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| Making ready for death: The community-institution divide | |
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| Abuse in institutional settings | |
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| Making death 'ordinary' | |
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| Ethnography of elderly death-hastening | |
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| Direct death-hastening: 'Do not resuscitate' | |
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| Regulation and inspection | |
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| Elderly care as a business enterprise: 'Culling sheep or cattle' | |
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| Overview | |
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| Death in Literary Discourse | |
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| Killing the elderly in literature | |
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| Elderly defence against geronticide: Ashliman's collection | |
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| Past to future: Science fiction and geronticide | |
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| Death-hastening in the care and nursing home | |
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| Ageism and the liminal status of the elderly | |
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| Voluntary euthanasia | |
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| Overview | |
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| Death by Choice?: Physician-assisted Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia | |
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| Introduction | |
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| A brief history of suicide and euthanasia | |
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| The situation today | |
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| Voluntarism: Ageism, material and cultural pressures | |
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| From physician-assisted suicide to voluntary euthanasia | |
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| Aspects of the debate | |
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| Vagueness of professional controls | |
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| Pain relief? Or alleviation of psychosocial problems | |
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| The long-term care alternative | |
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| Patient autonomy versus medical autonomy | |
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| Overview | |
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| Dr Shipman, Social Rights, and Preventing Geronticide | |
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| Who kills the elderly? | |
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| Professionalism and the case of Dr Harold Shipman | |
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| Checking geronticide | |
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| References | |
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| Index | |