Download The Elderly - You Are Next

The Elderly
Chapter 13
Henslin’s
Sociology: A Down To Earth Approach
Aging in Global Perspective
How are the elderly treated
around the world?
No single set of attitudes, beliefs, or policies
regarding the aged characterizes the world’s
nations.
Rather, they vary from exclusion and killing, to
integration and honor.
The global trend is for more people to live
longer.
What does the social construction of
aging mean?
Nothing in the nature of aging summons
forth any particular set of attitudes.
Rather, attitudes toward the elderly are
rooted in society and differ from one social
group to another.
What does the term "graying of
America" mean?
The phrase graying of America refers to
the growing proportion of Americans who
reach old age.
Since the costs of Social Security and
health care for the elderly have become a
social issue, sentiment about the elderly
seems to be shifting
The Symbolic Interactionist
Perspective
What factors influence perceptions of aging?
Symbolic Interactionists stress that, by itself,
reaching any particular age has no meaning.
They identify four factors that influence when
people label themselves as "old":




Biological changes
Biographical events
Gender age
Cultural timetables.
Cross-cultural comparisons…
Examples:
The traditional Native Americans, Tiwi, and
Eskimos—demonstrate the role of culture in
determining how individuals experience aging.
Ageism, negative reactions to the elderly, is
based on stereotypes, which, in turn, are
influenced by the mass media
The Functionalist Perspective
How is retirement functional for society?
Functionalists focus on how the withdrawal of the elderly
from positions of responsibility benefits society.
Disengagement theory examines retirement as a device
for ensuring that a society’s positions of responsibility will
be passed smoothly from one generation to the next.
Activity theory examines how people adjust when they
disengage from productive roles.
Continuity theory focuses on how people adjust to
growing old by continuing their roles and coping
techniques.
The Conflict Perspective
Is there conflict among different age groups?
Social Security legislation is an example of one generation making
demands on another generation for limited resources.
As the dependency ratio, the number of workers who support one
retired person, drops, workers may become resentful.
The Social Security Trust Fund may be a gigantic fraud perpetrated
by the power elite on the nation’s elderly. The argument that benefits
to the elderly come at the cost of benefits to children is fallacious.
Organizations such as the Gray Panthers and the AARP recognize
the potential for conflict between age groups.
Problems of Dependency
What are some of the problems that
today’s elderly face?
Women are more likely to live alone and to be poor.
At any one time, about 4 percent of the elderly live in
nursing homes.
Because of widespread abuse, the U.S. Congress
passed a bill of rights to protect nursing home residents.
The most common abusers of the elderly, however, are
members of their own family.
Poverty in old age, greatly reduced through government
programs, reflects the gender and racial-ethnic patterns
of poverty in the general society.
The Sociology of Death and Dying
How does culture affect the meaning—and
experience—of death and dying?
Like old age, death is much more than a
biological event.
Industrialization, for example, brought modern
medicine, hospitals, and the custom of dying in a
formal setting surrounded by strangers.
The Dying Process
Kübler-Ross identified five stages in the dying
process, which, though insightful, do not
characterize all people.
Hospices are a cultural device designed to
overcome the negative aspects of dying in
hospitals.
Suicide shows distinct patterns by age, sex, and
method.
It is possible that science will increase the
human life span.
******