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AGING
RON HAMMOND AND PAUL CHENEY-UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY
Learning Outcomes
At the end of this chapter you will be able to do the following.
Define gerontology, life expectancy, and life course.
Compare theories of aging for their usefulness today.
Recall the stages of grief.
Analyze inequalities related to aging.
WHAT IS THE STUDY OF AGING?
The United States of America is inhabited by many diverse people, including
distinguishable generations of society’s members based on age. Gerontology is the
scientific study of the processes and phenomena of aging and growing old. Gerontologists
investigate age, aging, and the aged. Examples of questions that would interest a
gerontologist include the following: What does it mean to be a particular age in a society?
What does the age 21 signify in America? What is this process we call aging and how does
it affect us and society? What does it mean to be old in the U.S.? Definitions of being
elderly vary. For example, the government typically sets 65 to be the elderly years, the
American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) finds 50 to be the eligible age of
membership, and many define their 70s or 80s as the time they begin to feel elderly.
Gerontology is multi-disciplinary, involving medical and biological scientists, social
scientists, and even financial and economic scientists all studying the processes of aging
from their discipline’s point of view.
Social Gerontology is the sociological subfield of gerontology which focuses on the social
aspects of aging. Sociology focuses on the broad understanding of the experiences of people
at specific ages, such as their health, their emotional and social wellness, and their quality
of life, just to mention a few.
The future growth of the U.S. elderly population is immense in comparison to previous
census tabulations and growth rates. Table 1 shows the number and percent of people in
the U.S. by age category. Those 15 to 64 years old make up the majority of the U.S.
population, 67.1% while the 65 and older age group only accounts for 12.7% in 2008. In
Figure 1 you can see tremendous growth in the proportion of the elderly group. In 2000,
they were only one in eight members of U.S. society, but in 2050 they are projected to be
one in five. In Figure 2 you can see that the oldest old, 85 years and older, is also growing
rapidly. This means that in general more people are living longer. In fact there are more
centenarians than ever before. A centenarian is a person who has had his 100th birthday.
U.S. census counts indicated about 37,000 centenarians in 1990 and about 50,000 in 2000.1
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Table 1. Number and Percent of United States Population by Age Category, 2008.2
65+ 15-64 Less than 14 United States Total
Number 38,690,169 203,987,724 61,146,753 303,824,646
Percent 12.7 67.1 20.1 100
Figure 1. Estimated Percentage of U.S. Population that will be Elderly and Non-Elderly,
2000-2050.3
Figure 2. Estimated Percentage of U.S. Population that will be 65-84 and over 85, 2000-
2050.4
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In many societies the elderly are revered (especially Asian societies). Filial piety is the
value, respect, and reverence of one’s elderly which is often accompanied by care giving and
support of the elderly. In Western countries, the elderly and their extended family are
considered co-equals and mutually independent until circumstances necessitate assistance
from children and other family members.
UNDERSTANDING THE GENERATIONS OF LIFE
A life course is an ideal sequence of events and positions the average person is expected to
experience as he/she matures and moves through life. Dependence and independence levels
change over the life course. In Figure 3, you can see that from birth to the teen years,
children’s levels of dependence are relatively high. Newborns have little ability to nurture
others, but as they are socialized and grow into their later-teen roles things change. By
young adulthood, independence is a prime value which leads many to move out on their
own and gain their own experiences. A young adult’s ability to nurture is moderate, but
often dormant since most pursue avenues of preparation for their adult lives rather than
immediately beginning their own families. Married and cohabiting couples are much more
independent and capable of nurturing and remain so throughout the grand-parenting
years. As the life course progresses into later life, the oldest elderly begin to lose their
independence as their health declines to the point that their resources lag behind the daily
demands placed upon them.
Figure 3. Diagram of Dependence and Independence over the Life Course.5
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The loss of independence is a part of the process of senescence. Senescence is the social,
emotional, biological, intellectual, and spiritual processes associated with aging. In U.S.
society there are different meanings to being in a specific age group. The ages 18, 21, and
50 for example hold specific meaning. At 18 one can vote, enter into contracts, and join the
military. At 21 drinking is added to the list. At 50 a person can join AARP and some
businesses offer senior discounts, such as Holiday Inn, Banana Republic, and Dollar Rent A
Car. These privileges are not the same in other countries. U.S. society has attached social
importance to these age markers. Think of movies you have seen lately, are the stars old?
Are there love scenes between older men and women? Youth is associated with beauty and
sexuality and old is associated with loss of beauty and lack of sexuality. In other countries
the markers vary, for example drinking in European countries is socially acceptable at a
much younger age than in the U.S. In some countries, the old are revered and valued and
still seen as sexual beings.
For many people in modern societies, aging is feared, vilified, and surgically and
cosmetically repaired. We do not like being “off our game.” Yet many elderly find their
lives very satisfying and they tend to report higher levels of self-esteem than do younger
members of society. Because we tend to value youth, youthful appearance, and youthful-
centered entertainment biases appear in the U.S. Many people hold biases and prejudices
against the elderly. Ageism is prejudice against a person based on chronological age. But
ageism is a unique form of bias. One may be prejudiced against another racial group,
cultural or ethnic group, or religious group while never being at risk of becoming a member
of that group. Ironically, ageist people are aging right now and will be until the day they die;
they are essentially biased against their own future status.
SOCIAL GERONTOLOGY THEORIES
For those who seek understanding of the elderly, there are three social theories that might
help to understand later-life experiences. Continuity Theory claims that older adults
maintain patterns in their later years which they had in their younger years. The elderly
adapt to the many changes which accompany aging using a variety of effective personal
strategies they developed earlier in their life. For example, those who participated in
outdoor activities in their younger years tend to continue to do so as older adults, although
they tend to accommodate their health and fitness limitations as they deem appropriate.
Activity Theory claims that the elderly benefit from high levels of activities, especially
meaningful activities that help to replace lost life roles after retirement. The key to success in
later-life is staying active and, by doing so, resist the social pressures that limit an older
person’s world.6
Disengagement Theory claims that elderly people realize the inevitability of death and
begin to systematically disengage from their previous roles while society simultaneously
disengages from the elderly person. This was the first formal aging theory that fell short of
credibility because the scientific data did not support its assumptions. There is quite a bit
of support for Continuity and Activity Theories.7
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To really understand the elderly today you
have to understand the larger social changes
that have transpired over the last century.
Around 1900, U.S. elderly held a more
cherished place in the hearts of younger
family members. Most homes were
intergenerational with grandparents,
parents, and children all living in the same
home.8
In 2000, the US Census Bureau reported that
there were 105.5 million households in the country with only 3.7% or nearly four million
households multigenerational.9 Today, not having older relatives live with their children
and grandchildren is the norm; however, in years past elderly family members were
considered a valuable asset with their wisdom and support of their children and
grandchildren.
Modernization Theory claims that industrialization and modernization have lowered the
power and influence which the elderly once had and that this has lead to much exclusion of
the elderly from community roles. Even though this theory is not as well established and is
somewhat controversial, it has made a place in science for understanding how large-scale
social forces have impacted the individual and collective lives of the elderly. In modern
societies, the economy has grown to a state that has created new levels of prosperity for
most, the new technologies have outpaced the ability of the elderly to understand and use
them, and the elderly are living much longer and are not essential to the economic survival
of the family as was the case in the past. Modernization can help us to understand why the
elderly have become stigmatized and devalued over the last century.
Who makes up the generations of our day? Figure 4 shows birth rates and generation labels
for the United States. The red represents the crude birth rate (CBR), a measure of the
number of live births per 1,000 people living in the population. The blue line represents the
general fertility rate (GFR), a measure of the numbers of live births per 1,000 women aged
15 to 44. Both CBR and GFR show a pattern of birth rates that were relatively high when the
World-At-War Generation was born. Birth rates declined with the Great Depression until
1946 (the commencement of the Baby Boom). The Baby Boomers represented a surge in
birth rates from 1946 to 1964 and declined to pre-Boom rates in 1965. Generation X or
“Gen X” represents the children of the Baby Boomers born about 1964 to 1981 which spilled
into Generation Y or the “Millennials” which are born about 1981 to present.
The World-at-War Generation is slowly disappearing from the U.S. population landscape.
On the 18th of June, 2008, the last living Veteran of World War I was honored by the White
House and Congress. Frank W. Buckles fought in WWI and was held prisoner in Manila
during World War II.10 Also the U.S. Veterans’ Bureau reported that there were 2,911,900
WWII veterans as of the 30th of September 2007, with about 900 WWII veterans passing
away each day. They also reported that 39.1% of all U.S. veterans were aged 65 and
older.11
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Figure 4. Birth and Fertility Rates in the US, 1909-2005.12
The majority of the elderly today are women. The elderly are divided into three life stages:
the young-old=65-74 years; the middle-old=75-84 years; and the old-old= 85+ years. In
2005, there were more females in all three ages categories because women, in most
countries of the world, have a higher life expectancy than men (see Figure 5). Life
expectancy is the average number of years a person born today may expect to live. The U.S.
Life expectancy today is about 80 for females and 75 for males (worldwide it is 70 for
females and 66 for males).13 Life expectancies have increased dramatically over the last 50
years in the Western nations of Canada, United States, Australia, Japan, and Western
Europe. Overall, men and women can expect to live longer than they did in the 1940s-
1990s.
“Perhaps no feature of the oldest-old is as striking as their sex ratio which was 39 in 1994.
The sex ratio in the United States was 44 for persons 85 to 89 years old, and only 26 for
persons 95 to 99 years old. In comparison, the sex ratio was 82 for persons 65 to 69 years
old.”14 Sex ratio is the number of males per 100 females in a given population.
The Baby Boomers represent 78.2 million U.S. citizens as of the July, 2005.15 This large
cohort is moving en masse into the ranks of the elderly. A cohort is a group of people who
share a statistical or demographic trait such as the Baby Boomers born between 1946 and
1964. Nearly 8,000 Baby Boomers turned 60 each day in 2006. The U.S. Census estimates
that 57.8 million Baby Boomers will be around in 2030 after they’ve all retired. One issue
for gerontologists is the financial strain the Baby Boomers will place on the rest of society
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once they are retired. Most speculate that Baby Boomers will not receive the same Social
Security benefits that their parents and grandparents enjoyed.
Figure 5. US Elderly Population Ages 65-74, 75-84, and 85+, by Sex.16
The children of the Baby Boomers are called Generation X or the “Baby Bust” because they
were born in post-boom low fertility rate years. They were different from their parents.
They grew up with the computer age and came to computer technology much like an
immigrant comes to a new country. This cohort grew up in an economic state of greater
posterity than did previous generations. Generation Y, or Millennials, are also called the
“Internet Generation” or “Screenagers” because they grew up with TV, video games, cell
phones, PDAs, and movie screens. Each generation is culturally distinct compared to the
previous ones even though much still remains in common. There is a good chance that
children of Generation Y parents will be better skilled than their parents with a technology
that has not yet been invented.
Tables 2 and 3 present life expectancies in the U.S. and the world. The elderly of the future
will be expected to live longer than any elderly in history. Being born in the U.S. affords the
average member of society a longer life. In Table 3 you can see that North American
children are born with higher life expectancies than other children around the world. By
far, being born in Japan and Hong Kong would provide the absolute highest life expectancy
at birth at 82 years.
POPULATION AGING IS OCCURRING WORLDWIDE
Over the past half-century, both the worldwide drop in fertility and the concurrent rise in
life expectancy have led to the gradual aging of the world’s population (see Table 4). Since
1950, the share of persons aged 65 and older has risen from five percent to seven percent
worldwide. Europe and Japan have led the way with North America, Australia, and New
Zealand close behind. However, older persons are now more than five percent of the
inhabitants in many developing countries and by 2050 are expected to be 19% of Latin
America’s population and 18% of Asia’s.
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Table 2. United States Life Expectancies in Years.17
Year Total Male Female
1970 70.8 67.1 74.7
1980 73.7 70.0 77.4
1990 75.4 71.8 78.8
2000 77.0 74.3 79.7
2010 78.5 75.6 81.4
2015 79.2 76.2 82.2
Table 3, 2007 World and Regional Life Expectancies in Years.18
Region Total Male Female
World 68 66 70
Africa 53 52 54
N. America 78 70 81
L. America 73 70 76
Asia 68 67 70
Europe 75 71 79
Oceania 75 73 78
DEATH AND DYING
As a young college student you probably don’t worry about widowhood, when one’s spouse
dies. Widows are surviving wives and widowers are surviving husbands. Justifiably, you
shouldn’t have to worry about becoming labeled as either based on statistical probabilities.
If you are female and marry a man two years older, and he typically dies 5-6 years before
you, then you will be a widow at some time in your life and may live 6-8 years as such. One
sub-discipline of gerontology is thanatology. Thanatology is the scientific study of death
and dying. Thanatology informs those who provide support and counsel to the dying.
How we define death, both our own and the death of others, is very much influenced by the
cultural definition of death we incorporated into our own values while growing up. It’s
very common for college students about your age to have lost a great aunt/uncle, great
grandparent, and even a grand parent. It’s not so common for you to have lost your own
parent or sibling. Grief is the feeling of loss we experience after a death, disappointment, or
tragedy. When you experience grief you are said to be in bereavement. Bereavement is a
name for the circumstances and conditions that accompany grief.
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Table 4. Worldwide Percent of Persons Ages 65 and Older.19
2007 2025 2050
World Total 7 10 16
Industrialized Countries 16 21 26
Developing Countries 6 9 15
Europe 16 21 28
North America 12 18 21
Oceania 10 15 19
Latin Am. & Caribbean 6 10 9
Asia 6 10 18
Africa 3 4 7
Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross researched the stages of grief.20 These include:
1. Denial – “All is fine.” or “It didn’t happen.”
2. Anger – “Why me?” or “I hate God for this.”
3. Bargaining – “I’ll be a better person if you (God)
will just let him live.”
4. Depression – “All is lost.” or “Why try?”
5. Acceptance – “I’ll be okay.” or “I can get through
this.”
We all grieve when things disappoint us, when someone
dies, or even when we break up with someone. We all
grieve in our own way. Studies show that most people
experience denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or
acceptance, but there exists some disagreement on the
part about cycling through Kübler-Ross’ stages in any
order. Some people even revisit stages later on.
The study of aging, the study of generations, the study of
life course, and the study of death and dying are part of
the study of social gerontology.
1
See Kestenbaum and Reneé, 2006 Retrieved from the Internet 19 July, 2008 from
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4030/is_200607/ai_n17183322
2
Retrieved 17 June 2008 from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html
3
Retrieved 18 June 2008 from http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/natprojtab02a Table 2a.
Projected Population of the United States, by Age and Sex, 2000 to 2050
4
Retrieved 18 June 2008 from http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/natprojtab02a Table 2a.
Projected Population of the United States, by Age and Sex, 2000 to 2050
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5
© 2009 Ron J. Hammond, Ph.D.
6
Google Robert Havighurst and Aging
7
See The Encyclopedia of Aging
8
See Dorian Apple Sweetser, 1984 “Love and Work: Intergenerational Household Composition in the U. S. in
1900” Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 46, No. 2 (May, 1984), pp. 289-293 retrieved on 18 June 2008
from http://www.jstor.org/stable/352460?seq=1
9
report C2KBR/01-8 retrieved on 18 June 2008, Table 2
10
See CNN, retrieved on 19 June, 2008 from http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/03/07/war.veteran/
11
See data sheet retrieved 19 June 2008 from
http://www1.va.gov/vetdata/docs/4X6_spring08_sharepoint
12
Retrieved 19 June, 2008 from Table 77: Live Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Divorces 1960-2006
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0077 and Table 1: Live births, birth rates, and
Fertility Rates by Race: United States Specified Years, 1940-1955 and Each year 1960-2005
13
See www.prb.org, 2007 Population Data Sheet , retrieved 19 June 2008
14
Retrieved 19 June 2008 from www.census.gov
15
See www.census.gov
16
Data retrieved 19 June 2008 from Table 1: Resident population, by age, sex, race, and Hispanic origin:
United States, selected years 1950–2005 from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus07 #001
17
Retrieved 19 June 2008 Table 98: Expectations of Life at Birth, 1970-2004, and Projections, 2010 and 2015;
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/08s0098
18
www.prb.org, 2007 Population Data Sheet , retrieved 19 June 2008
19
Retrieved 19 June 2008 from WWW.PRB.org Population Data Sheet 2007: Sources: C. Haub, 2007 World
Population Data Sheet, and United Nations Population Division
20
On Death and Dying, 1973, Routledge Press
http://www.medrounds.org/encyclopedia-of-aging/2005/12/index.html
http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-8
http://www.census.gov/population/www/pop-profile/elderpop.html
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/006105.html