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Chapter Overview
Ageism is the direct or indirect discrimination against people based on their age. Many of society’s ideas towards the aging population are shaped by the media. The sociological idea of the life course is helpful for coming to grips with the idea of aging. The life course is the sequence of individual age-linked experiences over time, which are embedded in our social institutions and historical influences. Sociologist Glen Elder writes that the life course is made up of five foundational assumptions. First, human aging is a life-long process. Therefore, longitudinal studies—studies that gather data on subjects over a long period of time—are the best ways to understand the full duration of the life course. Second, the individual is affected by what is happening around them when they make an important transition in life. For example, the circumstance will change if you get a divorce at 40 rather than at 20. Third, lives are embedded in broader social institutions, which means that the life transitions of others affect our own lives as well. Fourth, historical time, and what is going on in society while the person is going through major life events, shape the aging process. Fifth, individuals are responsible for shaping their own life courses and can make decisions that directly impact where they go in life.
Senescence is the biological aging of individuals as they live beyond maturity and is typically accompanied by chemical and organic changes. Today, older people are in general living healthier and longer lives than they did in the past. Now Canada’s age pyramid has taken on the shape of a diamond. An age pyramid is a graphic depiction of the age composition of a population. Age stratification theory posits that social structures influence how an individual experiences the process of aging and the vertical age stratification that unfolds. As more people in our society age, how we treat aging members becomes of increasing importance. There are two major consequences for our aging population: (1) more people need costly health care, and (2) more people are considered to be useless to the workforce and pushed to the social periphery.
Each sociological theory takes a different approach to aging. The structural functionalist is interested in disengagement theory which states that older people are the weakest members of the population and society has found ways to displace them, leaving room for the young and more able to take their place. On the other hand, conflict theorists believe that age-based discrimination does not benefit society and the pushing aside of the older is a direct result of too much power in the hands of the middle-aged people and their lack of consideration towards other age cohorts. Symbolic interactionists are interested in cultural symbols that we attach to the idea of aging and how this constructs our conception of age. Symbolic interactionists often adhere to the idea of activity theory: as people age, rather than giving up on their roles, they actually take on new roles and identities. Contrary to disengagement theory, they preserve their sense of self and sense of connectedness to society on a whole.