Sociology of normal ageing
Sarah Harper
Introduction
Research on the sociology of normal ageing has focused on understanding the paradigms of ‘successful ageing’. In an apparent reaction to ‘disengagement theory’(1) which proposed that to withdraw from roles and relationships in old age was normal, a new conceptual framework was developed in the late 1960s and 1970s which attempted to explain how individuals adapted to the constraints of ageing and old age. This has been variously measured in terms of good health, high levels of physical and mental functioning, and active engagement with one’s social and physical environment. While post-modernism and critical gerontology have attempted to refocus the debate, the emphasis of most research and writing has remained within the framework of understanding, explaining, and even facilitating, ‘success’ in old age.
There is also a body of research which recognizes the importance of the life course perspective, and that throughout an individual’s life, he or she is faced with continuities and discontinuities which have to be negotiated and resolved. Old age is but part of this lifelong process. Changes which occur in later life, such as retirement and widowhood, will lead to discontinuities in roles and relationships, other aspects of our lives will undergo little change allowing continuity. Alongside this, perspectives from anthropology, history and the social constructionist school of thought have also been recently influential.
This chapter will discuss concepts of age, generation, and cohort. It will consider the contribution of the life course approach to understanding ageing, and the manner in which other perspectives, such as social constructionism, narrative psychology and anthropology, have contributed to the sociology of normal ageing.
Structuring the life course through age
According to Hazelrigg,(2) the concept of age introduces signposts which link memory and anticipation, an iteratively remembered past and an iteratively expected future. Age classification is thus integral to normal organization of consciousness. As Mead’s extensive work on life history, reminiscence and autobiography informs us,
one interacts retrospectively with one’s younger selves, recalling earlier states of selfhood in the productive functioning of memory, and interacts prospectively with ones’ older selves, anticipating conditions, actions, goal realizations and the like of late states of selfhood.1
For both the individual and society, age conveniently dissects the life course into more manageable components. As a capitalist, industrial system emerged, and individuals moved from domestic units to bureaucratically organized corporations, so age was used to define adulthood and thus labour force participation. Age became the basis for regulating a large population. It defined the responsibilities of citizenship, and for each age related transition there is a stage of preparation, a stage of participation, and a stage of retirement.
Various anthropological studies2 have highlighted alternative ways in which the life course might be structured. One of the most influential anthropological studies on the sociology of ageing was Cowgill and Holmes(3) work on ageing and modernization, which argued that the marginalization of older people was directly linked to modernization. While extensively debated ever since, this work highlighted the importance and complexity of cultural diversity. The burgeoning of anthropological studies around the concept of age and ageing since the Cwgill and Holmes study have contributed significantly to our understanding of this diversity.
Neither the !Kung nor Herero, hunter-gather and Bantu pastoralist peoples respectively of Botswana, have a concept of chronological age, marking age by physical transitions. Alternatively, the Tuareg, a semi-nomadic peoples in northern Niger, noted age by social transitions—courtship, marriage, childbirth, and grandchildren. Here, life transitions defining the ageing process are predominantly social rather than biological. A girl becomes a women not at menstruation, but at marriage; a women becomes an older women not at menopause but on having a child marry. For the Sukama of north-west Tanzania, ageing is defined through life course events. This emphasizes the social status of elderhood, measured by the wealth of alliances, offspring and livestock, which could not be diminished through ill health or loss of mental capacity. The Gussui of south-western Kenya have a similar notion of elderhood. However, they have adapted this traditional seniority gradation based on networks and affiliations to modern demands,
incorporating such aspects as the role of entrepreneur to the criteria for achieving successful seniority status.
incorporating such aspects as the role of entrepreneur to the criteria for achieving successful seniority status.
Modern Japanese society still applies a wide variety of terms to different points of the life course indicating complex relationships between chronological age and life transitions and physical appearance. For example, mid-life men and women with children whether or not they are married, will commonly be referred to as uncle and aunt, (oji-san and oba-san). Similarly, old men and women are frequently given the name of grandfather or grandmother, (ojiisan and obaa san) regardless of the presence of grandchildren, a characteristic also found in some European countries such as Greece. It is therefore clear that the domination of chronological age, has less salience in some other cultures.
Generation and cohort
Two further important concepts are generation and cohort. Individuals born within the same time period may be perceived as having a shared history and a common biography. The concept of generation is thus the link between an individual life course and the social changes that occur during the historical time of that life course. A generation may thus be thought of as embodied history.
Many of these draw on ideas from Mannheim who explored the creation of society through the continuous emergence of new age groups or generations. He argued that if social processes were always carried on and developed by the same individuals then once established, any fundamental social pattern, attitude or intellectual trend would probably be perpetuated. Culture was thus developed by individuals who come into contact anew with the accumulated heritage, that is the role of generations and while the continuous emergence of new individuals results in some loss of accumulated possessions it facilitates re-evaluation of our inventory and teaches us both to forget that which is no longer useful and to covet that which has yet to be won.
The problem for quantitative social scientists is how to disentangle those factors pertaining to the individual life course from those emerging from the historical context. It is here that the concept of cohorts, and cohort analysis has been refined by some to form a more analytical tool in the understanding of age and generational change.
A cohort begins with a particular demography at birth, that is its sex, race and economic composition. Differential mortality may lead to a higher proportion of some sub-groups surviving to old age; social mobility may lead to changes in cohort social status composition; and different historical periods will allow or enhance differential migration in and out of specific cohorts. A more sophisticated analysis places cohorts within specific historical contexts.(4) The life-stage principle suggests that disruptive social changes have enduring consequences on the subsequent lives, a particularly marked effect on those vulnerable at the time of occurrence.
Life course perspective
The life course perspective views old age as part of a life-long process of continuity and change. These can be addressed within four main frameworks: context, transitions, roles, and relationships.
Context
A starting point for life course analysis is the acknowledgement of the historical context within which different cohorts experience different aspects of the life course to life course perspective. As Harper(5) explores, while, most older men experienced a long period of economic activity followed by abrupt retirement, many older Western women experienced their younger lives within a framework of primary domestic duties, supplemented by intermittent economic activity. As a result, most older women replaced low earning capacity or economic dependence in younger life, with low incomes in old age. Cohorts in mid life, however, have had very different social and economic frameworks within which to live out their lives. Half the labour force in many countries is now female and full-time economic employment, with or without domestic, in particular childcare responsibilities, is becoming a widespread experience for many women. Despite this, there are still considerable income disparities in earning capacity of mid-life men and women. However, it is likely that future cohorts of older women will have higher incomes relative to older cohorts, and a lower gender income disparity.
Transitions
The processes which occur within these contexts can be understood as a series of life transitions.(6) Key transitions associated with later life are the end of active parenting, grandparenthood, widowhood and retirement. Each of these phases of life which may overlap, may be understood in relation to prior phases, and are mediated by other variables such as gender, class, and race. The transition to grandparenthood, for example, is experienced very differently by men and women, while the end of active parenting and transition to parent of a non-dependent child, the so-called empty nest syndrome, is mediated both by gender and by the experience of active parenting itself.
The transition to widowhood is one of the most stressful events of later life, with a high prevalence of depression both immediately before (presumably due to anticipation of the event and/or associated care giving) and in the first year following bereavement. Widowhood is likely to lead to lower income but higher social contacts for women, while men maintain their income, but are more likely to lose social contacts, unless they remarry. Over half women over 65 are widowed, rising to four-fifths at 85. Only 17 per cent of men are widowed over 65, rising to 43 per cent by their late 80s. Nearly three-quarters of older men in the UK are married, compared with less than a half of older women. This is explained both by differential life expectancy and the tendency of men to remarry following divorce or widowhood.(7)
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