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This article deals with active ageing as a policy concept and its meanings in different cultures. We describe the Czech Republic and Poland, formerly communist states that experienced economic and political transitions in the 1990s and joined the European Union in 2004. Both countries are demographically similar, with ageing populations, but their understanding of active ageing as a policy issue are quite different. The methodology used was a meta‐analysis of expert interviews and consultations. The results show that there is no comprehensive policy towards active ageing in Poland and the Czech Republic does not have an overall systemic vision based on the principles of active ageing. The debate on activity in old age focuses on labour market employment activity, neglecting most of the issues of social services, care‐giving or just plain leisure. The lack of institutional mechanisms, fiscal limitations, discriminatory socio‐cultural perceptions and an unfavourable economic climate have all constituted barriers to implementing active ageing strategies in the period analysed. However, it seems that the problem has been noticed and that demographic changes and the attitudes of the elderly in the future could bring forth a more wide‐ranging discussion on active ageing.

In 2005, the world was amazed by the news of a 67-year old writer and part-time university lecturer in Romanian literature, Adriana Iliescu, becoming the world's oldest mother. For her, this role of a mother was a very new role -new role in her old age. The numbers of children born to older mothers (50plus) is rising, as of course is the number of older women in general.1 It is not a massive trend, but it is a trend. Reference to the existence of older mothers can be traced back to the sacred texts of the Old Testament, for example, and the apparent happiness of attaining this new role despite the Bimpropriate age^seems to be constant.People living longer, healthier lives in our societies of abundance have more lifetime and possibilities on their hands than any generation before them. This structural framework enables individuals to live more colourful lives, somewhat released from the constraints of age norms and institutional boundaries (Levin 2013). This results in wider and more populated role sets. Although the example of role of the mother of a new-born child may seem rather extreme and controversial for a discussion about the social roles of older people, it does serve to underpin the scale of change that later life has undergone and how much the social roles of people at this stage of the life course are affected.The complexity of later life role sets is increased by its inherent time and context dynamics. In his classical essay BFlexibility and the Social Roles of the Retired^from 1954, Robert Havighurst claims that Bgreat changes in social roles occur between the ages of 50 and 75^. He talks about roles that intensify (such a s homemaker), diminish Population Ageing (2018) 11:1-6 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12062-017-9217-z 1 For example, in the Czech Republic almost 20 children were born to mothers aged 50 and over in 2015. The total number of live born children was almost 111,000, and the average age of the mother was 30 years.

The paper discusses the concept of the quality of life and its measuring. It tries to explain its peculiarities in the rural space considering different levels of education, professional activities, mobility, ways of dwelling, access to the social and technical infrastructure. The subjective perception of both urban and rural people to the rural quality of life can be manifested in moving in and moving out. The main shortages of the rural quality of life can be seen (by rural people) in a poor access to the prestigious and well-paid jobs and to a richer social life. The main advantages of the rural way of life are generally evaluated (by urban people) by better access to the nature. A promotion of the local identity is considered as an important tool for improving the rural quality of life (besides of a solution of infrastructural problems), considering the enormous difference among European rural areas of a big differentiation of the European countryside. The last part of the paper summarizes the contributions of the special number.

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