-
Hey, it's hard for me to believe we're
-
here, almost at the end of the term.
-
This for me has gone by very quickly.
-
This week we're talking about aging,
-
and we're talking
about the field of gerontology.
-
In sociology,
we do a lot of study of stratification.
-
In one area of stratification
is age.
-
So people are treated differently
at different points
-
in their lifespan by our social system.
-
Let's talk about
some of the trends that we see
-
in changing demographics,
-
and also some of that stratification.
-
First off, the field of gerontology
is the study of aging.
-
It looks at how life changes as you age.
-
It matters as we look at health care;
it matters as we
-
look at how much of the population
is working at any given time,
-
or is relying on programs
like Social Security.
-
It matters as we look at caring
for our elderly,
-
and social expectations around care.
-
When we look at the sociology of aging,
the baby-boom cohort
-
has really created a need
for understanding aging better.
-
You can see here
in this chart that I've got,
-
how the age pyramid used to look
more like a pyramid, where it
-
was smaller at the top
and larger at the bottom.
-
But that dark section
is the baby boom generation.
-
And we've seen a lot of changes
to the age structure
-
of our society in the last few decades.
-
A large part is
because of the baby boomers.
-
It's also because people
started having fewer children.
-
And people started living longer.
-
So, in less developed countries,
we see very few people
-
living to that,
to those old ages at the top.
-
People have a lot of kids
at the bottom, because they
-
know that they're less likely to
-
live to adulthood or to live to old age.
-
Our age pyramid looks
much more like a bowling pin now,
-
than it did in the past,
where it looked more like a pyramid.
-
And as we
look at the baby boomers aging,
-
this has had an effect on,
oh, things like
-
where advertising is spending its money
-
and trying to get consumers to purchase.
-
Uh, it looks, there's changes
in things like Viagra,
-
and access to healthcare
and how much of our healthcare
-
is being utilized
by an older portion of the population.
-
There's differences on
how long men and women live.
-
So, some of the demographic differences
-
are that people overall
are living longer,
-
but women live
about five years longer than men.
-
Whites also live longer
than minority groups,
-
because of, um, racism
and discrimination within the system
-
that leads to shorter overall longevity.
-
Different cultures
treat aging differently.
-
In some cultures,
if you grow old, it's something that's
-
revered and really
seen as a great advantage,
-
to be able to grow old and gain wisdom.
-
However, in other cultures we
tend to hide the elderly
-
or fear the elderly
or not really respect the elderly.
-
And here within our culture,
we see less respect of the elderly
-
than what we see in,
in other cultures that have more of a,
-
a reverence or a, um, revering
of the elder population.
-
When we look at sociology
-
and what we're studying for elderly,
-
or across the life course, we tend to
-
look at the transitions in later life.
-
So, things like retirement
as a transition,
-
health changes, maybe loss of partners,
-
change in family form
because of a loss of partner
-
or because of children moving out.
-
Erik Erikson
was a psychosocial researcher
-
who looked at how these transitions
-
could lead to identity crisis.
-
Like if you no longer have your job,
-
that's part of your identity,
or your health goes down,
-
or as you get older,
-
your physical features change
-
and it can change your sense of self,
-
or your psychological well-being.
-
Sociological researchers
are interested in looking at
-
sexuality for the elderly,
and how sexuality or sexual expression
-
is often dismissed
or denigrated with old age.
-
We assume that elderly
are not sexual beings.
-
We look at ageism among LGBTQ seniors,
-
and how one's access to care
-
or who provides care
for them might change,
-
depending on whether
you have children or not,
-
whether you are LGBTQ or heterosexual.
-
We also are interested
in knowing the cultural aspects
-
behind death and dying.
-
We as a culture really
don't talk about death a lot,
-
and aren't really comfortable
discussing death
-
or the idea that our lives
will at some point end.
-
We, as sociologists
are really interested
-
in looking at stratification by age.
-
So, when you're looking at
age stratification of power,
-
property and prestige,
the elderly over 65
-
used to be the poorest group,
but Social Security
-
has really made a safety net.
-
Children are now the most likely
to be poor.
-
Older people do have power,
in that they're
-
more likely to vote,
and more of our politicians are elderly.
-
There's also the factor that all of us
-
have our old age ahead of us.
-
Or so we hope, right?
-
And so when we are voting
or making decisions,
-
we often make those decisions
with that in mind,
-
that someday they're going to affect us.
-
We're less likely to vote for,
or look at policies for children
-
in the same way,
because our childhood is behind us,
-
it's already past,
and we're less likely to vote for
-
or to vote in favor
of policies that help children.
-
Children also can't vote,
which puts them at a disadvantage.
-
Prestige can vary depending on culture.
-
Some cultures really hold their elderly
-
in high status and high esteem.
-
This is not the case
in the United States,
-
especially for women who are seen
-
as less valuable as they get older.
-
Our focus in the United States
-
tends to be on the youth culture,
-
on innovation, technology,
and we really don't value
-
that wisdom of the elder population
like is done
-
in many other countries and cultures.
-
Some examples of institutional
and individual age discrimination
-
might be infantilization
of the elderly, that is,
-
treating the elderly as a child.
-
We see this sometimes
in care centers and care facilities.
-
We also have an assumed decline
-
of mental faculties for the elderly.
-
We assume that as someone gets older,
their mind
-
is not going to be as sharp.
-
There's ageism in hiring and firing,
-
where you're more likely
to be laid off or fired
-
if you're elderly,
and less likely to be seen
-
as a good candidate for a job.
-
So these are factors that play
into discrimination of elderly.
-
And finally,
for our objectives this week,
-
is to compare
and contrast how different theories
-
look at age stratification.
-
Well, structural functionalists think
-
that aging is a natural process.
-
There should be a true,
smooth transition
-
from the tasks of production in society
-
to retiring, so that those jobs
can open up for younger people.
-
Conflict theorists
look at inequality in aging.
-
They look at inequality
for men and women,
-
in access to retirement.
-
In saving retirement money,
they look at differences
-
in lifespan and life expectancy.
-
And symbolic interactionists
really focus on the micro level.
-
They look at how aging
shapes our own identities
-
and our own relationships,
and might study the ways
-
in which we change, in our relationships
to others, as we age.
-
So these are the main things
that you'll be looking for,
-
in the readings and assignments
that focus on aging this week.
-
See you next time.