8. The United Nations specialized agencies, especially the International Labour Organization, have also given attention to the problem of ageing in their respective fields of competence. 3. The rights of older persons in relation to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 9. The terminology used to describe older persons varies considerably, even in international documents. It includes: “older persons”, “the aged”, “the elderly”, “the third age”, “the ageing”, and, to denote persons more than 80 years of age, “the fourth age”. The Committee opted for “older persons” (in French, personnes âgées; in Spanish, personas mayores), the term employed in General Assembly resolutions 47/5 and 48/98. According to the practice in the United Nations statistical services, these terms cover persons aged 60 and above (Eurostat, the statistical service of the European Union, considers “older persons” to mean persons aged 65 or above, since 65 is the most common age of retirement and the trend is towards later retirement still). 10. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights does not contain any explicit reference to the rights of older persons, although article 9 dealing with “the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance”, implicitly recognizes the right to old-age benefits. Nevertheless, in view of the fact that the Covenant’s provisions apply fully to all members of society, it is clear that older persons are entitled to enjoy the full range of rights recognized in the Covenant. This approach is also fully reflected in the Vienna International Plan of Action on Ageing. Moreover, insofar as respect for the rights of older persons requires special measures to be taken, States parties are required by the Covenant to do so to the maximum of their available resources. 11. Another important issue is whether discrimination on the basis of age is prohibited by the Covenant. Neither the Covenant nor the Universal Declaration of Human Rights refers explicitly to age as one of the prohibited grounds. Rather than being seen as an intentional exclusion, this omission is probably best explained by the fact that, when these instruments were adopted, the problem of demographic ageing was not as evident or as pressing as it is now. 12. This is not determinative of the matter, however, since the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of “other status” could be interpreted as applying to age. The Committee notes that while it may not yet be possible to conclude that discrimination on the grounds of age is comprehensively prohibited by the Covenant, the range of matters in relation to which such discrimination can be accepted is very limited. Moreover, it must be emphasized that the unacceptableness of discrimination against older persons is underlined in many international policy documents and is confirmed in the legislation of the vast majority of States. In the few areas in which discrimination continues to be tolerated, such as in relation to mandatory retirement ages or access to tertiary education, there is a clear trend towards the elimination of such barriers. The Committee is of the view that States parties should seek to expedite this trend to the greatest extent possible.