The term “social aging” alludes to changes in people’s responsibilities and social interactions as they age. Social aging and perspectives on aging vary across cultures and over time. Although the sociology of aging concentrates mainly on later life, it is based on the idea that aging is an ongoing process of growing up and getting older. To comprehend how old age develops, one must consider the complete life course leading to old age. Although biochemical and psychological factors influence the aging process throughout life, a sociological viewpoint adds to our knowledge of aging by explaining how social, political, and economic factors affect the aging process. Aging is socially created to a far greater degree than is generally acknowledged. This implies that the established societal structures people meet throughout their lives influence their age. Adults’ perceptions of aging have significant repercussions on their health and well-being. While generations are not naturally cohesive and separate units, they are socially situated since social settings vary over time, which means that being a human in one period is not the same as being a human in another (Fletcher, 2021). Humans within a particular era have a spectrum of possible experiences, exposing them to specific ways of emotions, thoughts, and behavior.
According to Fletcher (2021), the standard theories of action and disengagement ultimately establish the factual significance of age. According to disengagement theory, older life is when elderly individuals withdraw from society, renouncing prestige and responsibilities and beginning a time of inactivity that benefits both them and the community. On the other hand, activity theory claims that older people should fight withdrawal by engaging in activity, guaranteeing an excellent later age. Notably, both theories identify age as a social categorization deserving of sociological consideration. Today, it is impossible to imagine a sociology of aging that does not use age’s analytic position. Fletcher points out that the rise of the aging sociology indicates late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century population change, especially in quickly urbanizing and industrializing contexts where older adults made up increasing numbers of people experiencing poverty. As a result, age became a significant societal worry as it became widely linked to poverty, particularly in light of rising state obligations to public wellness and safety.
To learn how social forces affect aging, scholars Compare the aging experiences of various age groups and various demographic components (based on gender, social class, and race/ethnicity). Also, a comparative study across cultures is another method for examining how context influences aging. Therefore, this paper investigates how different social factors, including gender, class, and race, influence aging. For instance, in a study focusing on the United Kingdom, Fletcher (2020) highlights that the United Kingdom is one of the most age-segregated nations due to various social and economic variables, including property and urban-rural division. The article points out that socioeconomic age factors influence political preferences.
Firstly, Political views in the United Kingdom have always been strongly linked to class (Fletcher, 2021). In a nutshell, the Republicans have been the faction of middle- and upper-class people, while Labor has been the party of the salaried voters. This pattern continued through the wartime years and into the general election in 2010. Fletcher states that as the link between class and choice has diminished, the link between age and preference has grown stronger. Throughout the 2010s, the age segregation of voting patterns increased to the point that age was among the most robust connections between traditional socioeconomic factors and political views. As the link between age and partisanship has grown stronger, while class associations have weakened, partisan analysts have spread the idea that age is now the main factor in British politics. Many have asserted that age is a new class.
Moreover, Fletcher (2021) states that the increasing percentage of individuals pursuing higher education is critical for comprehending age-group characteristics, political preferences, and interrelationships. Higher schooling is linked with more left-wing political views, and being enrolled full-time is an even stronger forecaster. For instance, in the 2019 general election, less than half of the electorates who had attained university level supported the Conservatives, while more than half who had below A-level education supported the Liberal Democrats. The rationales for these correlations are linked to the premise that individuals from Democratic families are more likely to seek higher education while children from autocratic families are less likely to seek learning and are more likely to be repressive; intellectual capacity is favorably related to both freedom and educational achievement, Higher education fosters private safety, which fosters empathic values, and practical elements of higher education foster liberal values, whether through contact with novel individuals or brainwashing by liberal-minded instructors. Because of the growth of higher education, younger people are more likely to be highly educated than older adults, with the young accounting for most university students.
Another social perspective is the disparity in rural-urban aging. The legal age of inhabitants rises in villages and municipalities while remaining constant in cities. Also, the proportion of individuals over 65 to those under 65 rises in rural areas but falls in bigger cities and towns. This tendency is aided by the growth of university education, as joining trainees constitute one-fifth of all domestic migration (Fletcher, 2021). In terms of housing, three-quarter of individuals aged 65 and up own their house, compared to a quarter of 25-34-year-olds.
Race is another social factor influencing the aging process. To understand this context, Ailshire & Carr (2021) conducted a comparative cross-national study to asses the socioeconomic factors affecting health and wellness, especially in older individuals. The authors discovered that China has the lowest frequency of healthy aging, while Japan and Korea have the greatest. Individual-level variables did not explain country-level variations, implying the significance of macro-level factors such as financial circumstances and healthcare systems that vary significantly across nations. For example, employment is one context that varies significantly by nation and has been recognized as a significant element influencing aging outcomes. Using harmonized life history data to investigate unfavorable job events over the life cycle and their association with mental and physical health among older people in Europe and England, scholars discovered that older people who experienced job insecurity and discrimination between 25 and 50 years had poorer health later in life. Despite considering the importance of national labor policy, they found no proof that it was associated with poor health results in older age. The authors also revealed variations in effective aging across these states’ rural and urban regions.
Cognitive impairment is among multiple health effects in older people that likely started earlier in life. Research using the United States and England data looked at the effect of socioeconomic status from childhood to maturity on cognitive performance trajectories in later life. In both nations, they discovered that older people with more early-life social and economic advantages had better levels of mental ability. In England, more excellent childhood socioeconomic status was linked with a lower rate of memory loss. The connection between early-life conditions and later-life cognitive performance is mainly explained by adult socioeconomic variables such as school achievement and income (Ailshire & Carr, 2021). Even after accounting for adulthood socioeconomic variables, childhood socioeconomic status is linked with cognitive performance among the elderly.
Another study conducted among older adults in the United States and 18 European countries to assess the length to which family caregiving is related to dying in a hospital or care home rather than in their own homes discovered that older adults who received care from a family member were more likely to die at home and concluded that the availability of informal care is a critical factor in determining the place of death. They also looked at the significance of family caring across systems characterized by the national level of charity for long-term care. They discovered the correlations held across various country settings (Ailshire & Carr, 2021). Therefore, family-based care is inherently essential at the final phase of life, and policies geared at easing dying and death should prioritize families. Furthermore, although women and men have an equal threat of entering a nursing home based on data from surviving respondents, women have a reduced risk of nursing home entry than men based on end-of-life polls on hospitalization two years before death.
Additionally, Schwartz et al. (2021) study to untangle the reciprocal relationships between social engagement and perceptions of aging discovered proof of an inverse correlation between informal involvement and favorable initial perceptions of aging, such that people with positive initial perceptions of aging became more informally socially engaged, and people who were more informally involved expressed better views of their aging process. Moreover, more positive attitudes toward aging indicated a greater chance of participation in organizations and groups over time. These patterns held for both middle-aged and older people. Their results showed that people’s perceptions of their aging could influence their social participation. Consequently, being more optimistic and feel better about one’s aging can lead to increased emotional support and informal advice to others and increased involvement in organizations and networks.
Therefore, the aging process includes the interaction of psychological, biological, and societal factors. Also, aging is a philosophically fascinating phenomenon since, while it is a nearly inevitable encounter, it occurs within a wide range of varied and intricate social and interpersonal contexts, including health status, socioeconomic alignment, access to financial resources, geographical location, ethnicity, and gender.
References
Ailshire, J., & Carr, D. (2021). Cross-National Comparisons of Social and Economic Contexts of Aging. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 76(Suppl 1), S1–S4. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbab049
Fletcher J. R. (2021). Age-associations in British Politics: Implications for the Sociology of Aging. The British Journal of Sociology, 72(3), 609–626. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12820
Schwartz, E., Ayalon, L., & Huxhold, O. (2021). Exploring the Reciprocal Associations of Perceptions of Aging and Social Involvement. The Journals of Gerontology. Series B, Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 76(3), 563–573. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbaa008
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