This book brings together the results obtained at the end of a three-and-a-half-year project, FELICIE (Future Elderly Living Conditions in Europe), funded by the European Commission (DG Research) under the Fifth Framework Programme (Key Action The ageing population and disabilities). The issue of living conditions in the elderly population is just one part of the wider debate on the convergence of European societies which can be expected to share common trends in the decades to come, since the main features of their recent history have been moulded by the same factors. It was therefore deemed important to study the future situation of the elderly population in European countries belonging to a variety of demographic and sociopolitical regimes.