Two basic and quite different socioeconomic concepts — social adequacy and individual equity — that inform efforts to provide a coherent structure for providing income in old age (the "third age") are discussed in this paper by Yung-Ping Chen, Ph.D., who holds the Frank J. Manning Eminent Scholar's Chair, Gerontology Institute, University of Massachusetts — Boston. Major sources and the distribution of income for the elderly are described and analyzed in terms of the public policy issues that can affect the future capacity of various income systems to meet their basic objectives.
