Chapter 17 Families in Later Life

Summary

This chapter discusses the lives of the elderly, focusing on the people, economic/financial factors, and natural processes that are part of aging.

The elderly or old people can be defined in many ways. The chapter refers to the gerontologist's distinctions of young-old (ages 65 to 74) old-old (75-84) and oldest-old (85+). They may be characterized not only by age group by by gender and race. Gender wise, women generally tend to live longer than men because they are not as risky with their health. This also means that their are more female widows than male widows. Race wise, the life expectancy of minorities is lower than the life expectancy of whites; this implies the thought that, controlling for the populations, there are fewer elderly minorities than elderly white people.

The group of old people or people over the age of 65 is rapidly growing due to medical advances and higher life expectancies. Because aging is often accompanied by decline of health, we see major economic repercussions of this growing population of elderly. Twenty percent of gross domestic product is medical expenditures. Meanwhile, programs which help cover the financial costs of medical services such as Medicare and Social Security are running out of money.

Although aging is accompanied by health problems, both physical and mental/psychological (the book discusses depression and dementia), they tend to be happier than younger people. This may be because they have firm social ties that make them emotionally secure. Common perspectives and stereotypes of old people, especially those offered by the media, run contrary to this and are usually negative. This explains the 'fear of aging' which is often triggered in marketing.

Death and response to death (grief, mourning, bereavement, etc.) are also discussed. According to Kübler-Ross, the process of dying can be understood as consisting in stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Grief is characterized in the chapter by durations and intensities, but usually is accompanied by feelings of "shock, numbness, and disbelief".

Concerning the elderly and employment, most old people recently have found it difficult to retire; many retire, realize that they are financially unable to retire, and reenter the workforce. Furthermore, they have had trouble finding employment, perhaps due to age discrimination.

The chapter assess both the an elderly person caring for others (in grand parenting) and others caring for the elderly person (in care-taking). It describes the roles grandparents and the different 'types' of grandparents depending on how present they are in their grandchildren's lives. It also describes the common practice of care-taking. 29% of elderly people need care and 16% of unpaid peoples (most of which we can presume to be are adult children) provide that care and assist with activities of daily living. Caregiving may be financial, physical, or emotional. The chapter further describes those who take care of the elderly -- categorizing them by when they help and the costs/benefits of their help.

What I learned

I knew that 'grief' and 'mourning' had different senses but I have never before seen how they contrast explicitly. I also had not expected as many people to actively 'take care of' their grandparents. In order to make sense of the 29% of elderly peoples that require care, I would be interested to see the breakdown of what care they need -- financial, physical, or nonphysical/psychological.

Questions/Concerns

The chapter does not suggest that elderly people share similar character or personality traits. The chapter also does not offer any notion of how their lifestyles (hobbies, values) differ from those of young people. Yet, it is common to think of elderly people as caring, friendly and welcoming -- we might further think of them too as having a their own (generational) culture with their own values. Do you think that any generalizations can be made here?