Elderly/Ageing

Ageing population and social stratification

Transitions and Challenges of Aging

  • Physical decline:

    • Less serious than younger people think, but includes pain, limited activities, dependency, loss of friends/relatives, and facing mortality.

    • Finding Meaning: Older people recognize life is nearing an end, impacting coping mechanisms (Bernice Neugarten, 1971).

    • Social Isolation:

      • Common among elderly due to retirement, physical problems, negative stereotypes.

      • Greatest cause: death of significant others, especially spouses (more common for women).

Retirement

  • Impact:

    • Reduces income and social prestige.

    • May cause loss of purpose.

  • Responses:

    • Part-time work, volunteering, grandparenting.

  • Historical context:

    • Recent concept in high-income countries due to productivity.

    • Strategy to allow younger workers with up-to-date skills into the workforce.

  • Current situation:

    • High-income societies: retirement is a personal choice due to pension programs.

    • Low-income nations: retirement is not an option for most.

    • Rising costs of pension programs are leading countries to consider later retirement.

Aging and Poverty

  • US poverty rates among elderly:

    • Fell from ~35% in 1960 to 8.9% in 2009 (14.3% for entire population).

    • Recent situation has worsened, especially for women and minorities.

    • Inequalities linked to gender, race, and ethnicity persist in old age.

  • Work:

    • Past: seniors continued working by choice.

    • Present: many have no choice and may never be able to retire.

Ageism

  • Definition:

    • Prejudice and discrimination against older people.

    • Targets elderly, but can affect middle-aged individuals.

  • Manifestations:

    • Reflects some truth (older people are statistically more likely to be mentally/physically impaired) but often involves unfair generalizations.

Examples of discriminations faced by the elderly

  • - Employment Discrimination: Older adults often face bias in hiring, promotions, and job

    retention. Employers may assume they are less capable or unwilling to adapt to new technologies,

    leading to fewer opportunities and forced early retirement.

    - Healthcare Discrimination: Seniors may receive inadequate medical care due to age-related

    biases. Healthcare providers might dismiss symptoms as simply "old age" rather than investigating

    further, leading to misdiagnosis or under-treatment.

    - Social Exclusion: Elderly individuals can be marginalized in social settings, including family

    gatherings and community events. This exclusion can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness.

    - Financial Services: Older adults are often targeted for financial scams and fraud. They may also

    face unfair treatment in financial services, such as being denied loans or credit due to their age.

    - Stereotyping: Seniors are frequently subjected to negative stereotypes, such as being frail,

    forgetful, or technologically inept > affect their self-esteem and how they are treated by others.

Theories of Aging

Structural-Functional Theory: Aging and Disengagement

• Drawing on the ideas of Talcott Parsons, Elaine Cumming and William Henry (1961) explain that the

physical decline and death that accompany aging can disrupt society. In response, society

disengages the elderly, gradually transferring statuses and roles from the old to the young so that tasks

are performed with minimal interruption.

Disengagement theory is the idea that society functions in an orderly way by removing people from positions of

responsibility as they reach old age.

• Disengagement ensures the orderly operation of society by removing aging people from productive

roles before they are no longer able to perform them.

• Another benefit of disengagement in a rapidly changing society is that it makes room for young

workers, who typically have the most up-to-date skills and training.

Limitations to the disengagement theory approach

• First, many workers have found that they cannot disengage from paid work because they need

the income.

• Second, some elderly people, rich or poor, do not want to disengage from work they enjoy and

because disengagement may also mean losing friends and social prestige.

• Third, it is not clear that the societal benefits of disengagement outweigh its social costs, which

include the loss of human resources and the need to take care of people who might otherwise be

able to support themselves.

• Fourth, any rigid system of disengagement does not take account of the widely differing abilities

of the elderly.

Symbolic-Interaction Theory: Aging and Activity

• Drawing on the symbolic-interaction approach, activity theory is the idea that a high level of activity increases

personal satisfaction in old age.

• Because everyone bases social identity on many roles, disengagement is bound to reduce

satisfaction and meaning in the lives of older people.

• What seniors need is not to be pushed out of roles but to have many productive or recreational

options.

• Activity theory does not reject the idea of job disengagement; it simply says that people need to find

new roles to replace those they leave behind. It shifts the focus of analysis from the needs of

society (as stated in disengagement theory) to the needs of the elderly themselves, emphasizing the

social diversity of elderly people and highlighting the importance of choice > activity theory counters

disengagement theory by saying that elders find life worthwhile to the extent that they stay active

which is why many older men and women seek out new jobs, hobbies, and social activities.

> One problem with this approach > it ignores the fact that many of the problems older people

face—such as poverty—have more to do with society than with themselves, something stressed by

the social-conflict theory.

Social-Conflict Theory: Aging and Inequality

• A social-conflict analysis is based on the idea that access to opportunities and social resources

differs for people in different age categories.

• For this reason, age is a dimension of social stratification.

• The social-conflict approach claims that our industrial-capitalist economy creates an age-based

hierarchy. In line with Marxist thought, Steven Spitzer (1980) points out that a profit-oriented

society devalues any category of people that is less productive.

• Social-conflict analysis also draws attention to various dimensions of social inequality within the

elderly population. Differences of class, race, ethnicity, and gender divide older people >

Elderly white people enjoy advantages denied to older minorities and women—an increasing

majority as people age— suffer the social and economic disadvantages of both sexism and ageism.

The social-conflict approach highlights age-based inequality and points out that capitalism

devalues elderly people and people who are less productive. But critics claim that the real

culprit is industrialization . As evidence they point to the fact that the elderly are not better

off under a socialist system, as a Marxist analysis implies.