Aging in poland at the dawn of the 21^st century

The aim of this article is to present some aspects (both individual and collective) of the present and future situation of the elderly in the Western world, with particular stress on Poland. The authors examine a few contexts of aging as a stage of human life. Some aspects of the processes discussed here are relatively common whereas others have only gained importance in recent decades. This paper is composed of two parts. The first one, using socio-cultural anthropological, as well as historical data, describes various significant contexts of the present and approaching processes, focusing on the continued and changing perceptions of old age. The second part, based on the quantitative data delivered by statistical services and pooling centres, shows the most likely positions of various groups of the elderly in the Polish society in the perspective within the coming 25 years.