The Sociology of Aging and the Aged

The Sociology of Aging and the AgedAuthor(s): Ethel ShanasSource: The Sociological Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Spring, 1971), pp. 159-176Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Midwest Sociological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4105709 .Accessed: 01/06/2013 04:48Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp .JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [e-mail]. .Wiley and Midwest Sociological Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto The Sociological Quarterly.http://www.jstor.org
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The Sociological Quarterly 12 (Spring 1971):159-176 State of the Field Series* The Sociology of Aging and the Aged ETmEL SHANAS, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle OLD people are found in every society. Although sociological interest in the aged is relatively recent, the old as a significant part of society have been noted and described for centuries. The ancient Greeks, for example, recognized aging and the aged. The words of the aged Cephalus, quoted in Plato's The Republic (Jowett, 1937:593), have a modem sound about them: Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is-I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. The description of the aged given by Cephalus is not unlike some contempor- ary accounts of this group. Current American sociological interest in the aged, however, can be traced directly to the efforts of Ernest W. Burgess as a member of the Committee on Social Adjustment of the Social Science Research Council. Professor Burgess encouraged persons to do research in this area-Otto Pollak, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Robert J. Havighurst, and Clark Tibbitts were among his earliest recruits and colleagues, Havighurst and Tibbitts as fellow members of a subcommittee on social adjustment in old age. Burgess also outlined important sociological topics which should be investigated. In a memorandum to the Social Science Research Council in 1940, he pointed out that while the propor- tion and number of old people in the population were steadily increasing, social scientists had given but little attention to the traits, behavior, and adjustment of the aged (Young, 1941). Professor Burgess saw the elderly as an emergent new problem group of society. Reviewing sociological interest, he listed seventeen possible topics for research on the aged. These topics still have contemporary relevance, and research is still under way on themes such as, "Seniority and its function in social control," and "Types of adjustment to retirement from business and other employment" (Young, 1941). Studies of the aged are now carried on both by social scientists and by many other persons in different disciplines; clinicians, biologists, and social welfare workers among others. There is considerable interdisciplinary work in the field. The range of topics covered is enormous, and a detailed classified bibliography of gerontology and geriatrics appears regularly in The Journal of Gerontology, the official publication of the American Gerontological Society. * This article was prepared with the assistance of State of the Field Editor, Irwin Rinder.
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160 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY In the present review paper I shall restrict my discussion to publications in the field which may be considered "sociological," defining these as works which deal with social structural constraints and persons in the middle and later years. Sociological studies of the aged focus in one of eight areas. These are (1) the family; (2) friends and neighbors; (3) housing; (4) work, retirement, and leisure; (5) economic constraints and welfare; (6) health; (7) social roles and life satisfaction; and (8) comparative studies. Obviously, the divisions between the classificatory areas are not clear-cut. While some works have a major emphasis in one area, they may also have minor emphases in others. In this review I shall first discuss briefly some significant landmark works on aged and the aging which appeared before 1965, and then summarize selected more recent publications in the field. Landmark Works In 1957 the Gerontological Society began a project to collect, organize, and publish existing scientific knowledge in the psychological and social aspects of aging for use by teachers in the field of aging. Dr. Wilma Donahue, a psycholo- gist at the University of Michigan, served as chairman of the organizing com- mittee for this mammoth work. The three volumes produced by this project, the Handbook of Aging and the Individual (Birren, 1959), the Handbook of Social Gerontology (Tibbitts, 1960), and Aging in Western Societies (Burgess, 1959), are landmarks in the field. The volume edited by Clark Tibbitts is particularly useful to sociologists containing as it does position papers in most of the sig- nificant areas mentioned earlier. Written more than ten years ago, many of these papers offer theoretical insights and predictions of things to come which are still extremely pertinent. As an example, Streib and Thompson (1960:447-488) in a thoughtful report on their research on the older person in the family point out that many of our ideas of the aged come from the popular press and represent atypical persons. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of family relation- ships. Streib and Thompson's research dealt with older people and their adult children. They stress that older people do not sit alone, neglected by their children. Instead, there appear to be many contacts between old people and their children, while at the same time older people and their children seek in- dependence each from the other. This theme has now become a familiar one in the empirical literature on the family. The three Handbook volumes are exhaustive compendia. A number of other more specific works in the sociology of the aging which have made major contri- butions to the field should also be mentioned here. While there appears to be no major pre-1965 sociological publications in either the housing or economics of the aged, or in comparative studies, there are valuable works dealing with the family, with friendship patterns, with work and retirement, with health, and with social roles. An interesting aspect of all these studies is the way in which the facts about the aged turn out to be completely different from many of the stereo- typical beliefs about them. This is true whether the investigator is reporting on family, friendships, work, health, or social roles. The most important book on the family in old age published before 1965 is undoubtedly Peter Townsend's The Family Life of Old People (1957). Professor
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Aging and the Aged 161 Townsend, then a member of the Institute of Community Studies, London, made an intensive study of old people living in Bethnal Green, a working-class area near central London. His findings, like those of Streib and Thompson, indicated that old people were not isolated from their families, and that in old age family life became not less important but more important. Further, he found that only a small minority of old people could be described as isolated, and in a brilliant analysis, he distinguished between isolation, or seclusion from others; desolation, or social loss; and loneliness, a subjective rather than an objective state of being. Written in a clear, concise, and vivid style, the Townsend book is an outstanding contribution to the sociology of aging. Even before Townsend's London survey, an American community survey of the aged had been completed in New York City (Kutner et al., 1956). This was the Kips Bay-Yorkville study, which originally sought to answer three questions: (1) what social and cultural factors facilitate adjustment to aging, (2) what kinds of people successfully adjust themselves to aging, and (3) what forms should be taken by programs designed to meet the needs of the aged. While the volume gives answers to all of these questions, the section of this research report which has had the greatest impact in the field deals with the relationships between the morale of the aged and their social contacts with family, friends, and neighbors. Kutner and his associates developed an index of morale in the aged. They found that among low status groups frequent visiting with family and friends had no relation to morale as they measured it; among high status groups low morale accompanied frequent visiting with children and relatives. This was not true of frequent contacts with friends. This unexpected finding was matched by another finding which violated "common sense think- ing." Like Townsend, Kutner found that there were some persons who did not respond adversely to social isolation (Kutner et al., 1956:118). It is worth noting that the authors of Five Hundred Over Sixty (Kutner et al., 1956), published almost a score of years ago, stress the need to relate social research to social action. This has been a common theme in the literature on the

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Sosiologi penuaan dan AgedAuthor(s): Ethel ShanasSource: The sosiologis Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 2 (musim semi, 1971), pp. 159-176Published oleh: Wiley atas nama Midwest sosiologis SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4105709. Diakses: 01/06/2013 04:48Your penggunaan Arsip suku menunjukkan persetujuan Anda terhadap syarat & ketentuan penggunaan, tersedia di.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. SUKU adalah layanan not-for-profit yang membantu para peneliti, peneliti, dan siswa menemukan, menggunakan dan membangun berbagai ofcontent dalam arsip digital yang terpercaya. Kami menggunakan teknologi informasi dan alat-alat untuk meningkatkan produktivitas dan memfasilitasi beasiswa formsof baru. Untuk informasi lebih lanjut tentang suku, silahkan hubungi [e-mail]. . Wiley dan Midwest sosiologi masyarakat berkolaborasi dengan suku untuk mendigitalkan, melestarikan serta memperluas accessto sosiologis Quarterly.http://www.jstor.org TheKonten ini di-download dari 140.159.34.46 pada Sabtu, 1 Juni 2013 04:48:29 AMSemua penggunaan sesuai suku syarat dan ketentuanThe Sociological Quarterly 12 (Spring 1971):159-176 State of the Field Series* The Sociology of Aging and the Aged ETmEL SHANAS, University of Illinois at Chicago Circle OLD people are found in every society. Although sociological interest in the aged is relatively recent, the old as a significant part of society have been noted and described for centuries. The ancient Greeks, for example, recognized aging and the aged. The words of the aged Cephalus, quoted in Plato's The Republic (Jowett, 1937:593), have a modem sound about them: Men of my age flock together; we are birds of a feather, as the old proverb says; and at our meetings the tale of my acquaintance commonly is-I cannot eat, I cannot drink; the pleasures of youth and love are fled away: there was a good time once, but now that is gone, and life is no longer life. Some complain of the slights which are put upon them by relations, and they will tell you sadly of how many evils their old age is the cause. The description of the aged given by Cephalus is not unlike some contempor- ary accounts of this group. Current American sociological interest in the aged, however, can be traced directly to the efforts of Ernest W. Burgess as a member of the Committee on Social Adjustment of the Social Science Research Council. Professor Burgess encouraged persons to do research in this area-Otto Pollak, Ruth Shonle Cavan, Robert J. Havighurst, and Clark Tibbitts were among his earliest recruits and colleagues, Havighurst and Tibbitts as fellow members of a subcommittee on social adjustment in old age. Burgess also outlined important sociological topics which should be investigated. In a memorandum to the Social Science Research Council in 1940, he pointed out that while the propor- tion and number of old people in the population were steadily increasing, social scientists had given but little attention to the traits, behavior, and adjustment of the aged (Young, 1941). Professor Burgess saw the elderly as an emergent new problem group of society. Reviewing sociological interest, he listed seventeen possible topics for research on the aged. These topics still have contemporary relevance, and research is still under way on themes such as, "Seniority and its function in social control," and "Types of adjustment to retirement from business and other employment" (Young, 1941). Studies of the aged are now carried on both by social scientists and by many other persons in different disciplines; clinicians, biologists, and social welfare workers among others. There is considerable interdisciplinary work in the field. The range of topics covered is enormous, and a detailed classified bibliography of gerontology and geriatrics appears regularly in The Journal of Gerontology, the official publication of the American Gerontological Society. * This article was prepared with the assistance of State of the Field Editor, Irwin Rinder.This content downloaded from 140.159.34.46 on Sat, 1 Jun 2013 04:48:29 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions160 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY In the present review paper I shall restrict my discussion to publications in the field which may be considered "sociological," defining these as works which deal with social structural constraints and persons in the middle and later years. Sociological studies of the aged focus in one of eight areas. These are (1) the family; (2) friends and neighbors; (3) housing; (4) work, retirement, and leisure; (5) economic constraints and welfare; (6) health; (7) social roles and life satisfaction; and (8) comparative studies. Obviously, the divisions between the classificatory areas are not clear-cut. While some works have a major emphasis in one area, they may also have minor emphases in others. In this review I shall first discuss briefly some significant landmark works on aged and the aging which appeared before 1965, and then summarize selected more recent publications in the field. Landmark Works In 1957 the Gerontological Society began a project to collect, organize, and publish existing scientific knowledge in the psychological and social aspects of aging for use by teachers in the field of aging. Dr. Wilma Donahue, a psycholo- gist at the University of Michigan, served as chairman of the organizing com- mittee for this mammoth work. The three volumes produced by this project, the Handbook of Aging and the Individual (Birren, 1959), the Handbook of Social Gerontology (Tibbitts, 1960), and Aging in Western Societies (Burgess, 1959), are landmarks in the field. The volume edited by Clark Tibbitts is particularly useful to sociologists containing as it does position papers in most of the sig- nificant areas mentioned earlier. Written more than ten years ago, many of these papers offer theoretical insights and predictions of things to come which are still extremely pertinent. As an example, Streib and Thompson (1960:447-488) in a thoughtful report on their research on the older person in the family point out that many of our ideas of the aged come from the popular press and represent atypical persons. Nowhere is this more true than in the area of family relation- ships. Streib and Thompson's research dealt with older people and their adult children. They stress that older people do not sit alone, neglected by their children. Instead, there appear to be many contacts between old people and their children, while at the same time older people and their children seek in- dependence each from the other. This theme has now become a familiar one in the empirical literature on the family. The three Handbook volumes are exhaustive compendia. A number of other more specific works in the sociology of the aging which have made major contri- butions to the field should also be mentioned here. While there appears to be no major pre-1965 sociological publications in either the housing or economics of the aged, or in comparative studies, there are valuable works dealing with the family, with friendship patterns, with work and retirement, with health, and with social roles. An interesting aspect of all these studies is the way in which the facts about the aged turn out to be completely different from many of the stereo- typical beliefs about them. This is true whether the investigator is reporting on family, friendships, work, health, or social roles. The most important book on the family in old age published before 1965 is undoubtedly Peter Townsend's The Family Life of Old People (1957). ProfessorThis content downloaded from 140.159.34.46 on Sat, 1 Jun 2013 04:48:29 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsAging and the Aged 161 Townsend, then a member of the Institute of Community Studies, London, made an intensive study of old people living in Bethnal Green, a working-class area near central London. His findings, like those of Streib and Thompson, indicated that old people were not isolated from their families, and that in old age family life became not less important but more important. Further, he found that only a small minority of old people could be described as isolated, and in a brilliant analysis, he distinguished between isolation, or seclusion from others; desolation, or social loss; and loneliness, a subjective rather than an objective state of being. Written in a clear, concise, and vivid style, the Townsend book is an outstanding contribution to the sociology of aging. Even before Townsend's London survey, an American community survey of the aged had been completed in New York City (Kutner et al., 1956). This was the Kips Bay-Yorkville study, which originally sought to answer three questions: (1) what social and cultural factors facilitate adjustment to aging, (2) what kinds of people successfully adjust themselves to aging, and (3) what forms should be taken by programs designed to meet the needs of the aged. While the volume gives answers to all of these questions, the section of this research report which has had the greatest impact in the field deals with the relationships between the morale of the aged and their social contacts with family, friends, and neighbors. Kutner and his associates developed an index of morale in the aged. They found that among low status groups frequent visiting with family and friends had no relation to morale as they measured it; among high status groups low morale accompanied frequent visiting with children and relatives. This was not true of frequent contacts with friends. This unexpected finding was matched by another finding which violated "common sense think- ing." Like Townsend, Kutner found that there were some persons who did not respond adversely to social isolation (Kutner et al., 1956:118). It is worth noting that the authors of Five Hundred Over Sixty (Kutner et al., 1956), published almost a score of years ago, stress the need to relate social research to social action. This has been a common theme in the literature on the