Introduction

The connections between disability and ageing have been extensively discussed in the social gerontology literature but much less so within critical disability studies or in analyses of inequality. Partly as a consequence of this, there has been a tendency to focus discussion of disability in old age as a ‘health’ or ‘quality of life’ issue rather than an issue of intersectional discrimination. The main purpose of this chapter is to challenge this perspective and to elucidate some of the subtle, and not so subtle, ways in which disability discrimination and age discrimination combine and interact. This multiple discrimination has very real implications in the lives of older disabled people, including those who acquire impairments later in life and those who have aged with them. It has implications for the planning and provision of public services and for the redress of discrimination in law.