And elderly people unable to work should get the same benefits as young people and middle-aged people unable to work.

ECONOMIST: Letters

They were young and middle-aged workers, people who lived in Beijing but did not have the much-prized residency permit that would allow them to settle with their families.

BBC: Changing China seen from the 'hard seats' of a train

Most important of all, in offices, on construction sites, on football pitches around the world, the great, complex, social, co-operative endeavours which typify our species and make us human, in all of these you find middle-aged people telling supposedly sharper and stronger young adults what to do.

BBC: Viewpoint: Just what is middle age?

Club Med had become Club Red because the young people who were once its customers were now middle-aged and less thrilled by its offer of organised, communal living, however comfortable.

ECONOMIST: Gilbert Trigano