passages and age-related transitions actually are (Braun & Sweet, 1984). Midlife, just like old age, turns out to be a time of life that is different for different people (Brim, Ryff, & Kessler, 2004).
In contrast, many theorists today see personality in terms of continuity or flexible adaptation over the life course. These theories are more optimistic than those that see old age as a time of loss resulting in either passive adjustment or dependency and depression. Today, most gerontologists believe that people bring positive resources to aging, including a personal sense of meaning, which in turn can promote resilience or adaptation to losses in later life (Bolkan & Hooker, 2012). Empirical studies show that people generally cope well with life transitions such as retirement, widowhood, and the health problems of age. When problems come, styles of coping tend to remain intact, and people adapt. Because of this capacity for adaptation, old age is not usually an unhappy time.
Nevertheless, many behavioral or psychological problems come about because of the difficulties of preparing for transitions without the help of widely observed rituals for rites of passage and institutional structures. For example, the transition from adolescence to adulthood is typically marked by events such as marriage, parenthood, and employment (Hogan & Astone, 1986). Although schools, job orientation, and marriage counseling help people make transitions to adulthood, the situation is different in later life. Few social institutions exist to help people with the transitions in the second half of life.
In addition, we currently have no consensus about how people are supposed to act when in later life they confront events traditionally linked to younger ages (Chudakoff, 1989). For example, how are older widows supposed to go about dating? How much help should older parents expect from their children who are themselves at the point of retirement? When confronted with a 70-year-old newlywed or a 60-year-old “child,” we recognize that norms are unsettled when it comes to transitions in later adulthood (Featherstone & Hepworth, 1993).
Traditional Theories of Aging
Modernization Theory
How do we make sense of the contradictory images of aging found in contemporary culture? One influential account that tries to do so is the modernization theory of aging (Cockerham, 1997). According to this theory, the status of older adults declines as societies become more modern. The status of old age was low in hunting-and-gathering societies, but it rose dramatically in stable agricultural societies, where older people controlled the land. With the coming of industrialization, it is said, modern societies have tended to devalue older people. The modernization theory of aging suggests that the role and status of older adults are inversely related to technological progress. Factors such as urbanization and social mobility tend to disperse families, whereas technological change tends to devalue the wisdom or life experience of elders, leading to a loss of status and power (Cowgill, 1986). Modernization may thus be related to the declining status of older people in different societies (Clark, 1992–1993).
This account strikes a responsive chord because it echoes the “golden age” picture of later life, which depicts the old as honored in preindustrial societies (Stearns, 1982), a version of the “world we have lost” syndrome (Laslett, 1965/1971). But imagining that elders were all well treated in “the good old days” is a big mistake, and modernization theory has been widely criticized (Haber, 1983; Quadagno, 1982). As we have seen already, in ancient, medieval, and premodern societies, older adults were depicted and treated in contradictory ways: sometimes abandoned, sometimes granted power. The history of old age includes variations according to race, gender, social class, and culture. Modernization has clearly reshaped the meaning of old age, yet the image and reality of old age have never entirely coincided, as the cross-cultural study of aging confirms (Ayalon & Tesch-Romer, 2018; Holmes & Holmes, 1995).
At the core of the history of old age, there has always been ambivalence: both resentment and guilt, both honor and oppression. The psychological basis for ambivalence is understandable. Why shouldn’t adults feel disillusionment and dread at the sight of vulnerable old age stretching before them? Why shouldn’t we harbor ambivalent feelings toward those who accumulate power and wealth over a long lifetime? We see the same ambivalence today. Older people as a group receive many benefits from the government based on their age, yet they are sometimes depicted, perhaps unfairly, as selfish or unconcerned with other generations, as well as out of touch with contemporary perspectives and issues. The truth is different from and more complex than what popular images convey.
A decisive change with industrialization was growing rationalization and bureaucratization of the life course—a greater rigidity among the “three boxes of life” of childhood, adulthood, and old age (Bolles, 1981). At the same time, as we have seen, mass media and rapid flux in cultural values have begun to erode any special qualities linked to distinctive life stages. With increasing longevity, more people are living to old age, and older adults as a group are becoming a larger proportion of the total population. The political power of older people as a group has grown because of their sheer numbers. Meanwhile, the achievement of old age has been devalued simply by becoming more familiar. Perhaps most important, old age has been stripped of any clear or agreed-on meaning because the entire life course has changed in ways that will have unpredictable effects on what aging may be in the 21st century.
There is a big problem with constructing an overall theory of aging for social gerontology. The problem can be compared to a parallel challenge in the biology of aging: Is aging truly something inevitable (Olshansky & Carnes, 2002)? Evolutionary biology begins with a paradox: Why should old age appear at all? From the standpoint of survival of the fittest, there seems to be no reason for organisms to live past the age of reproduction. Old age, in short, should not exist. Yet human beings do live long past the period of fertility; indeed, human beings are among the longest-living mammals on earth.
Thus, the meaning of old age is a problem even for biology, and biologists have put forward a whole variety of theories to explain it: somatic mutation theory, error catastrophe theory, autoimmune theory, and so on. No single theory has proved decisive, but all have stimulated research enabling us to better understand the biology of aging. Similarly, the changing conditions and meanings of old age have provoked a variety of theories in social gerontology. Just as with the biology of aging, there is no clear agreement that a single theory is best. But some early theories of aging are still worth closer examination because they demonstrate how deeply held values affect all theories of aging and how these theories are related to enduring questions about the meaning of old age: disengagement theory, activity theory, and continuity theory.
Urban Legends of Aging
“Respect for elders was higher in the past.”
This is a common myth, debunked by historian Peter Laslett (1965/1971) 50 years ago in his classic The World We Have Lost. Maybe there’s a reason why the Bible contains the Fifth Commandment, “Honor thy father and thy mother.” It’s the only Commandment that carries a reward for following it.
Disengagement Theory
One of the earliest comprehensive attempts to explain the position of old age in modern society is the disengagement theory of aging (Cumming & Henry, 1961). The disengagement theory looks at old age as a time when both the older person and society engage in mutual separation, as in the case of retirement from work. From the perspective of this theory, the process of disengagement is understood to be a natural and normal tendency reflecting a basic biological rhythm of life. In other words, the process of disengagement is assumed to be functional, serving both society and the individual. Disengagement theory is related to modernization theory, which posits that the status of older adults must decline as society becomes more modern and efficient, so it is natural for older adults to disengage.
