INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY 3E

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Chapter 13 AGING AND THE ELDERLY

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COLLEGE PHYSICS

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Chapter # Chapter Title

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FIGURE 13.1

Older people, especially family members, can foster a connection between our past and present and help build our memories and identities. But they sometimes need unexpected help, which they do not always accept. (Credit: PWRDF/flickr)

FIGURE 13.2

Elderly people may not always conform to society's expectations of their attitudes or their abilities. While we don't know whether or not these marathon participants are running competitively, it's clear the older person in the foreground is ahead of many younger people. (Credit: Mike Kaden/flickr)

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ATTITUDES ABOUT AGING

Aging is a constant in our developing, but we don’t always fully understand or accept it.

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Aging is met with happiness and pride early in life, and difficulty and concern later in life.

• Events like First Communion, Bar Mitzvah, or Quinceañera are often complete celebrations
• Events like 60^th Birthday, retirement, or 50^th anniversary are also happy, but may have a twinge of sadness or acceptance.
• Other milestones of aging, such as seeing different types of doctors, moving to a retirement community, and using assistive devices can be sources of embarrassment and challenge.

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STUDYING AGING

Gerontology is a field of science that seeks to understand the process of aging and the challenges encountered as seniors grow older.

• Gerontologists investigate age, aging, and the aged.
• Gerontology includes the work of medical and biological scientists, social scientists, and even financial and economic scholars.

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Social gerontology refers to a specialized field of gerontology that examines the social (and sociological) aspects of aging. Researchers focus on developing a broad understanding of the experiences of people at specific ages, such as mental and physical wellbeing, plus age-specific concerns such as the process of dying.

• For example, people grow older they define “old age” in terms of greater years than their current age (Logan 1992). Many people want to postpone old age and regard it as a phase that will never arrive. �

FIGURE 13.3

How old are these people? In modern U.S. society, appearance is not a reliable indicator of age. In addition to genetic differences, health habits, hair dyes, and attitudes make traditional signs of aging increasingly unreliable. (Credit: Jason Hargrove/flickr)

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FIGURE 13.4

This population chart shows the population size of people in different age groups. The youngest age group, at the bottom, remains largely static. The 18-64 age group has been growing and will continue to do so. But most notable is the increasing size of the third tier (orange) representing ages 65-84. As the chapter discusses, this group is growing significantly, shown by the increasing share of the overall graph it takes up. Also of note is the group at the very top, which is also growing in size. (For comparison, can you even detect the line representing 85+ on the left side of the graph, closer to the year 1900?) (Credit: US Census Bureau.) � �

FIGURE 13.5

Senior citizens are an important political constituency, and they may use their age to their advantage. Originating in Canada in the late 1980s, groups of Raging Grannies have protested nuclear weapons, the Iraq War, pesticides, genetically modified foods, and racial injustice. (Credit: Brave New Films/flickr)

PERSPECTIVES ON AGING

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Note: When this survey was taken in 2017, Millennials were all 36 and under.

Credit: Emling/US Trust 2017.

Q: AT WHICH AGE IS SOMEONE OLD?

1. 40
2. 50
3. 60
4. 70
5. 80

FIGURE 13.6

This U.S. Census graph shows the number of males per 100 females. However, over the past two decades, men have narrowed the percentage by which women outlive them. (Credit: the U.S. Census Bureau) �

THE IMPACT OF AGING BABY BOOMERS

Baby Boomers are people in the United States born between approximately 1946 and 1964

• By 2030, all Baby Boomers will be age 65 and older, and represent the largest group of elderly people.
• Healthcare spending is projected to grow by 5.5 percent each year from now until 2027.
• The portion of government spending on Medicare (a program in which the government covers some costs of healthcare for the elderly) is expected to increase from 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009 to 8 percent of GDP in 2030, and to 15 percent in 2080 (CMS 2018).
• The American Geriatrics Society notes that from 2013-2025, there will be a 45 percent increase in demand for physicians who specialize in geriatrics.
• As a result, over 33,000 specialists will be needed to fill the healthcare needs in 2025. And in 2020, there were only 6,320 such specialists in the United States (AGS 2021).

FIGURE 13.7

Population by Age and Sex: 2000 and 2010. In this U.S. Census pyramid chart, the baby boom bulge was aged thirty-five to fifty-five in 2000. In 2020, they were aged fifty-five to seventy-five. (Credit: the U.S. Census Bureau)

AGING AROUND THE WORLD

In 2019, the world had 703 million people aged 65 years or over.

By 2050, that number is projected to double to 1.5 billion. One in six people in the world will be 65 or over (United Nations 2020).

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Dependency ratio: the number of citizens not in the labor force (young, disabled, or elderly) to citizens in the labor force (Bartram and Roe 2005).

China on the cusp of an “aging boom”— a period when its elderly population will dramatically increase.

• The number of people above age sixty in China today is about 178 million, which amounts to 13.3 percent of its total population (Xuequan 2011).
• By 2050, nearly a third of the Chinese population will be age sixty or older, which will put a significant burden on the labor force and impact China’s economic growth (Bannister, Bloom, and Rosenberg 2010).

On a more global scale, the dependency ratio is projected to more than double in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Northern Africa and Western Asia, and Central and Southern Asia.

BIOLOGICAL CHANGES

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Primary Aging refers to biological factors such as molecular and cellular changes

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Secondary Aging is aging that occurs due to controllable factors like exercise and diet

SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CHANGES

Changing roles and responsibilities

• Many older people are no longer primary caregivers
• May not be able to “keep up” with work
• Eventually retire or become physically unable to work

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May feel like a burden or a drain on family

• May not be able to take on all day-to-day tasks
• Something as simple as for help carrying groceries can be a difficult step for someone who used to give that help to others.
• May not be able to pay at restaurants or may need to limit expenses like gifts to grandchildren.

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Mobility can be a significant challenge with emotional implications.

• Inability to drive or take public transportation can leave people more dependent on others, reduce their overall independence, and lead to loneliness.

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FIGURE 13.12

Many gay and lesbian couples are finally able to tie the knot—sometimes as seniors—after decades of waiting. (Credit: Fibonacci Blue/flickr).

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DEATH AND DYING

Grief is a psychological, emotional, and social response to the feelings of loss that accompanies death or a similar event

Thanatology is the systematic study of death and dying

Physician-Assisted Suicide is the voluntary use of lethal medication provided by a medical doctor to end one’s life

Hospice is a type of healthcare that threats terminally ill people when “cure-oriented treatments” are no longer an option.

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FIGURE 13.13

A young man sits at the grave of his great-grandmother. (Photo courtesy of Sara Goldsmith/flickr)

AGEISM AND ABUSE

Ageism refers to discrimination based on age

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Gerontocracy is a type of social structure wherein the power is held by a society’s oldest members

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But that is becoming less common:

• The average age of corporate executives was fifty-nine years old in 1980.
• In 2008, the average age had lowered to fifty-four years old (Stuart 2008).

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Elder Abuse is the act of a caretaker intentionally depriving an older person of care or harming the person in their charge

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SIGNS OF ELDER ABUSE

(Credit: National Center on Elder Abuse)

FIGURE 13.15

Are these street signs humorous or offensive? What shared assumptions make them humorous? Or is memory loss too serious to be made fun of? (Photo courtesy of Tumbleweed/flickr)

FIGURE 13.16

World War II (1941–1945) veterans and members of an Honor Flight from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, visit the National World War II Memorial in Washington, DC Most of these men and women were in their late teens or twenties when they served. (Photo courtesy of Sean Hackbarth/flickr)

FUNCTIONALISM

Disengagement theory: withdrawing from society and social relationships is a natural part of growing old.

• It’s natural to withdraw from individuals and society because of our departure from the world
• the elderly less reinforcement to conform to social norms.
• social withdrawal is experienced differently by men and women.

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Activity theory: activity levels and social involvement are key to this process, and key to happiness

• According to this theory, the more active and involved an elderly person is, the happier he or she will be.

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Continuity theory: the elderly make specific choices to maintain consistency in internal (personality structure, beliefs) and external structures (relationships), remaining active and involved throughout their elder years.

• This is an attempt to maintain social equilibrium and stability by making future decisions on the basis of already developed social roles (Atchley 1971; Atchley 1989).

FIGURE 13.17

Does being old mean disengaging from the world? (Photo courtesy of Candida Performa/Wikimedia Commons)

ELDERLY PEOPLE IN THE CARCERAL SYSTEM

Many of the people incarcerated in the War on Drugs and mass incarceration periods remain in the prison system and are reaching elderly status.

As of 2019, the over-50 population was the largest in the prison system

• Physical health: Increased illness, susceptibility to disease, difficulty moving around.
• Mental health: Depression, loneliness, other mental health issues, potentially exacerbated by losses of other incarcerated people (who have become friends) and family.
• COVID-19 was a massive and unexpected risk and issue due both to the age of the incarcerated and their living conditions, with high numbers of incarcerated people becoming ill or dying.

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Some officials estimate the costs of incarcerating an aging person to be three times higher than to keep a younger person in prison.

• Reducing prison sentences in Maryland saved an estimated $185 million over five years.

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FIGURE 13.18

Would you want to spend your retirement here? A growing elderly prison population requires asking questions about how to deal with senior inmates. (Photo courtesy of Claire Rowland/Wikimedia Commons)

CONFLICT THEORY

Modernization theory (Cowgill and Holmes 1972) suggests that the primary cause of the elderly losing power and influence in society are the parallel forces of industrialization and modernization.

• As societies modernize, the status of elders decreases, and they are increasingly likely to experience social exclusion.

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Age stratification theory: Members of society might be stratified by age, just as they are stratified by race, class, and gender.

• different age groups will have varying access to social resources such as political and economic power.

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Exchange theory (Dowd 1975): We experience an increased dependence as we age and must increasingly submit to the will of others because we have fewer ways of compelling others to submit to us.

FIGURE 13.19

At a public protest, older people make their voices heard. In advocating for themselves, they help shape public policy and alter the allotment of available resources. (Photo courtesy of longislandwins/flickr).

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

Subculture of aging theory, which focuses on the shared community created by the elderly when they are excluded (due to age), voluntarily or involuntarily, from participating in other groups.

• This theory suggests that elders will disengage from society and develop new patterns of interaction with peers who share common backgrounds and interests.

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Selective optimization with compensation theory. Baltes and Baltes (1990): Personal development is are based on the components of selection, optimization, and compensation.

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Gerotranscendence (Tornstam): As people age, they transcend the limited views of life they held in earlier times, becoming become less self-centered and feel more peaceful and connected to the natural world. Wisdom

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