what you do your characteristics how you contribute theorizing the third age · 2011-04-17 ·...

Theorizing the Third AgeDawn C. CarrPostdoctoral FellowCarolina Program for Health and Aging ResearchUniversity of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

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Sunday, April 17, 2011

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What is the Third Age?

‣ Initially a broad theoretical concept

‣ A group of older adults (“young-old”) who are “relatively healthy, relatively affluent, relatively free from traditional responsibilities of work and family” and who are “increasingly well educated and politically active” (Neugarten, 1974)

‣ “The Third Age...is an attribute of a population, indeed of a nation, as well as of particular men and women” “...the Third Age becomes a possibility only when every citizen can be reasonably sure at the onset of the Second Age that there will be a Third Age for him or her. By reasonably sure, we mean having more than a fifty per cent chance of that happening.” (Laslett, 1991)

‣ “The life phase in which there is no longer employment and childraising to commandeer time, and before morbidity enters to limit activity and mortality brings everything to a close” (Weiss & Bass, 2002)

‣ Now it is being operationalized in a variety of ways

‣ Post-retirement, pre-disability


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The Third Age in Gerontology

‣ Emerged within the context of three salient themes:

‣ Roles

‣ Population Aging

‣ Patterned Differences


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Roles

‣ What are old people for?

‣ Problem: Retirement is a “roleless role”

‣ Third age solution

‣ Meaningful roles

‣ Productive roles

‣ Role transitions

‣ Retirement no longer sudden and complete

‣ Third-age = redefining “retired”

‣ Bridge, part-time, contract employment

‣ Disability -- (assumed) period of non-productivity

‣ Third age roles = Avoidance/delay of disability


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Population Aging

‣ Growing number of healthy retirees, years post-retirement, pre-disability

‣ Problem: How can we manage the cost of age-based social programs?

‣ Older adults as a liability

‣ Solution: Third-agers as a resource

‣ Potentially productive group


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Patterned Differences

‣ Patterns in how people move through later life

‣ Problem: older adults traditionally examined as a homogenous group

‣ How do we capture heterogeneity in a meaningful way?

‣ Solutions: Identifying patterns within differences

‣ Third age = recognition of differences in movement through transitions

‣ NOT chronological age boundaries

‣ Inequalities -- factors that create differences

‣ Resources: wealth, health, discretionary time

‣ Social location: gender, education, social class

‣ Behaviors: volunteering, caregiving, working, time use


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“Frameworks” for Theorizing the Third Age

Materialist/Cultural

Socio-Demographic

Individual Phenomenon

Lifestyle Life phase

Societal Phenomenon

StatusDemographic

patterns


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Demographic Patterns

‣ The Third Age is a sector of the population with particular characteristics

‣ e.g., work status, care status, disability/health status

‣ Value to development of Gerontological knowledge:

‣ Policy implications of population changes

‣ Factors that contribute to a Third Age

‣ Societal issues associated with emergence of the Third Age

‣ Societal benefits of the Third Age

‣ Cross-country comparisons

‣ Variations in characteristics of third-agers

‣ Implications of policy differences (employment)


Socio-Demographic



Societal Phenomenon

StatusDemographic

patterns


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Example: Demographic Indicators of the Third Age in the United States


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Life Phase

‣ The third age is a period in one’s life that occurs after retirement but before disability

‣ Retired

‣ Expectation of discretionary time

‣ Disabled

‣ Disabled older adults not expected to be productive


‣ Categorization of individuals into life phases

‣ Differences in how people move through third age

‣ Differences in third-agers from one country to the next

‣ Trends -- characteristics of third-agers over time


Socio-Demographic



Societal Phenomenon

StatusDemographic

patterns


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Example: Trends in distribution of 60+ by life phase in the United States (2000-2008)

Third-agers = work 20 hrs or fewer & 0 ADL diff; pre-third-agers= work 20 hrs+; fourth-agers = 1+ ADL diff


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Status

‣ The Third Age is a privileged status available to older people in industrialized nations

‣ A cultural phenomenon

‣ e.g., Baby boomers (generational context)

‣ Component of the consumer culture


‣ Cultural context (qualitative)

‣ Recognition of perpetuation of inequality

‣ Third Age = “good” old age??

‣ i.e., issues related to ageism, ethnocentrism, gender, productivity


Socio-Demographic



Societal Phenomenon Status

Demographic patterns


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Example: Percent Odds of being a “third-ager” among 60+ (2008)

Third-agers = work 0 hrs, self-rated health good or higher, 0 ADL difficulties, upper 75th percentile for total wealth


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Lifestyle

‣ Third-agers are older individuals who engage in particular behaviors that are beneficial to society (as defined by salient cultural values)

‣ Third-agers = older adults who are:

‣ “productive”

‣ “active” (avoid disability)

‣ contribute to accumulation of human/social capital


‣ Barriers to continued engagement

‣ Facilitators of continued engagement


Socio-Demographic

Individual Phenomenon Lifestyle Life phase

Societal Phenomenon

StatusDemographic

patterns


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Example: Percent Odds of Engaging in Third Age “Behaviors” among 60+ (2000)

Third-agers = individuals who volunteer, help grandchildren (100 hrs+), help friends, or work


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The Third Age and new theorizing

‣ Theorizing related to Third Age scholarship advancing knowledge about:

‣ Roles

‣ Population Aging

‣ Patterned differences

‣ However, theoretical work in early stages

‣ Next steps should include development of testable theories

‣ Implications of how Third Age is defined

‣ Consequences if Third Age theoretical development does not advance

‣ Blaming older adults who do not fit the idealized version of aging

‣ Return of “greedy geezers”

‣ Questioning importance of social programs that led to third age


what you do your characteristics how you contribute theorizing the third age · 2011-04-17 ·...

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