Population ageing is now recognised as a global issue of increasing importance, and has many implications for health care and other areas of social policy. However, these issues remain relatively under-researched, particularly in poorer countries, and there is a dearth of specific policy initiatives at the international level. For example, the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development agreed to 15 key principles for future policy, but none of these even make indirect mention of the aged (International Conference on Population and Development, 1995, Documents. Programme of action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. Population and Development Review, 21(2), 437-461). This paper seeks to highlight some of the key issues arising from population ageing. It begins with a brief overview of international trends in demographic ageing, and considers the health needs of different groups of older people. It sketches out some implications for policy, paying particular attention to the financing and organisation of health services. The final part of the paper contains a discussion about how older people have been affected by, and have adapted to, processes of social, economic and political change. Given the wide scope of these concerns, it is not possible to discuss any issue in detail, and the paper does not claim to give the subject matter a comprehensive or global treatment. It must be stressed that patterns of ageing and their implications for policy are highly complex and variable, and, as such, great care should be taken in generalising between the experiences of different groups of older people, and between different settings.