Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-10T03:28:33.844Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Economic inequality in later life and imagination of the future

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2022

David J. Ekerdt Open the ORCID record for David J. Ekerdt [Opens in a new window]  and
Erin Adamson
David J. Ekerdt*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA
Erin Adamson
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: dekerdt@ku.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The personal futures of older adults are continually in mind, motivating goals, desires and plans. People approach the near and long term with differing agentic traits and dispositions, and they face forward, as well, from differing standpoints according to socio-economic position. This is a study of how persons who are economically privileged diverge in their future thought from persons of modest means, asking how income level qualifies the capacity to imagine, and foresee affecting, the future. We draw upon interviews conducted with 42 older, community-dwelling individuals in the Midwestern United States of America, a sample that was partitioned into two groups, one with below-median incomes versus one with incomes above 200 per cent of median. Interviews disclosed various foci of future thought with common contents among the two groups. Three foci, however, confirmed between-group differences in confidence about handling possible material and support needs, and also in enacting idealised norms of retirement. The underlying theme of these foci – financial security, long-term supports and services, and trips and travel – was the perceived affordability of the future. We conclude that there is indeed a material basis for imagination of and proactivity toward the future. When paradigms about later life set expectations that idealise lifestyle choice, consumption and prudential preparation for the future, these are prospects towards which some can reach more readily than others.

Keywords

agencyfinancial securityfuture thoughtinequalityproactivity
Type
Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 44 , Issue 6 , June 2024 , pp. 1435 - 1452
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramson, CM (2015) The End Game: How Inequality Shapes Our Final Years. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baltes, MM and Carstensen, LL (1999) Social-psychological theories and their applications to aging: from individual to collective. In Bengtson, VL and Schaie, KW (eds), Handbook of Theories of Aging. New York, NY: Springer, pp. 209–226.Google Scholar
Baltes, PB (1997) On the incomplete architecture of human ontogeny: selection, optimization, and compensation as foundation of developmental theory. American Psychologist 52, 366–380.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bandura, A (2001) Social cognitive theory: an agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology 52, 1–26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carr, D (2019) Golden Years? Social Inequality in Later Life. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carstensen, LL, Isaacowitz, DM and Charles, ST (1999) Taking time seriously: a theory of socioemotional selectivity. American Psychologist 54, 165–181.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crystal, S, Shea, DG and Reyes, AM (2017) Cumulative advantage, cumulative disadvantage, and evolving patterns of late-life inequality. The Gerontologist 57, 910–920.Google ScholarPubMed
Cummins, R (2021) Financial, Health, and Caregiving Worries and Experiences Survey: Views from the 50-Plus. Washington, DC: AARP Research. Available at https://www.aarp.org/research/topics/economics/info-2021/financial-stress-older-women.html.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dannefer, D (2020) Systemic and reflexive: foundations of cumulative dis/advantage and life-course processes. Journals of Gerontology: Series B 75, 1249–1263.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Deterding, NM and Waters, MC (2018) Flexible coding of in-depth interviews: a twenty-first-century approach. Sociological Methods & Research 50, 708–739.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elder, GH, Johnson, MK and Crosnoe, R (2003) The emergence and development of life course theory. In Mortimer, JT and Shanahan, MJ (eds), Handbook of the Life Course. New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, pp. 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emirbayer, M and Mische, A (1998) What is agency? American Journal of Sociology 103, 962–1023.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, MG (2007) The meaning of the future: toward a more specific definition of possible selves. Review of General Psychology 11, 348–358.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics (2020) Older Americans 2020: Key Indicators of Well-being. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Gilleard, C and Higgs, P (2020) Social Divisions and Later Life: Difference, Diversity and Inequality. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Gott, M, Small, N, Barnes, S, Payne, S and Seamark, D (2008) Older people's views of a good death in heart failure: implications for palliative care provision. Social Science & Medicine 67, 1113–1121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hamadeh, N, Van Rompaey, C and Metreau, E (2021) New World Bank Country Classifications by Income Level 2021–2022. Available at https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/new-world-bank-country-classifications-income-level-2021-2022.Google Scholar
Hardy, M (2009) Income inequality in later life. In Uhlenberg, P (ed.), International Handbook of Population Aging. New York, NY: Springer, pp. 493–518.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitchings, RS, Venn, S and Day, RJ (2018) Assumptions about later life travel and their implications: pushing people around? Ageing & Society 38, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitlin, S and Johnson, MK (2015) Reconceptualizing agency within the life course: the power of looking ahead. American Journal of Sociology 120, 1429–1472.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holstein, MB and Minkler, M (2007) Critical gerontology: reflections for the 21st century. In Bernard, M and Scharf, T (eds), Critical Perspectives on Ageing Societies. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, pp. 13–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hoppmann, CA and Gerstorf, D (2016) Social interrelations in aging: the sample case of married couples. In Schaie, KW and Willis, SL (eds), Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, 8th Edn. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 263–277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, RL and West, JC (2005) It Shouldn't Be This Way: The Failure of Long-term Care. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katz, S and Calasanti, T (2015) Critical perspectives on successful aging: does it ‘appeal more than it illuminates’? The Gerontologist 55, 26–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kooij, DTAM, Kanfer, R, Betts, M and Rudolph, CW (2018) Future time perspective: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology 103, 867–893.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kornadt, AE, Voss, P and Rothermund, K (2015) Hope for the best, prepare for the worst? Future self-views and preparation for age-related changes. Psychology and Aging 30, 967–976.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koss, C and Ekerdt, DJ (2017) Residential reasoning and the tug of the fourth age. The Gerontologist 57, 921–929.Google ScholarPubMed
Lang, FR and Carstensen, LL (2002) Time counts: future time perspective, goals, and social relationships. Psychology and Aging 17, 125–139.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lang, FR and Damm, F (2018) Perceiving future time across adulthood. In Oettingen, G, Sevincer, AT and Gollwitzer, PM (eds), The Psychology of Thinking About the Future. New York, NY: Guilford Press, pp. 310–331.Google Scholar
Lehning, A, Scharlach, A, Wolf, JP, Davitt, J and Wiseman, H (2015) Perceived challenges to the sustainability of community-based aging initiatives: findings from a national study of Villages. Journal of Gerontological Social Work 58, 684–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manski, CF (2004) Measuring expectations. Econometrica 72, 1329–1376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Markus, H and Nurius, P (1986) Possible selves. American Psychologist 41, 954–959.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, KU (2003) The sociology of the life course and lifespan psychology: diverging or converging pathways? In Staudinger, UM and Lindenberger, U (eds), Understanding Human Development: Dialogues with Lifespan Psychology. New York, NY: Springer Science+Business Media, pp. 463–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McHugh, KE (2003) Three faces of ageism: society, image and place. Ageing & Society 23, 165–185.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
NORC (2017) Perceptions of Aging During Each Decade of Life After 30 (Issue Brief). Washington, DC and Chicago, IL: West Health Institute and NORC at the University of Chicago. Available at https://www.norc.org/PDFs/WHI-NORC-Aging-Survey/Brief_WestHealth_A_2017-03_DTPv2.pdf.Google Scholar
O'Rand, AM (2009) Cumulative processes in the life course. In Elder, GH and Giele, JZ (eds), The Craft of Life Course Research. New York, NY: Guilford Press, pp. 121–140.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2015) In It Together: Why Less Inequality Benefits All. Paris: OECD Publishing.Google Scholar
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2019) Society at a Glance 2019: OECD Social Indicators. Paris: OECD Publishing.Google Scholar
Polivka, L (2020) Neoliberalism and the future of retirement security. Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics 40, 23–42.Google Scholar
Polivka, L and Luo, B (2020) From precarious employment to precarious retirement: neoliberal health and long-term care in the United States. In Grenier, A, Phillipson, C and Setterston, RA (eds), Precarity and Ageing: Understanding Insecurity and Risk in Later Life. Bristol, UK: Policy Press, pp. 191–214.Google Scholar
Queen, TL, Berg, CA and Lowrance, W (2015) A framework for decision making in couples across adulthood. In Hess, TM, Strough, J and Löckenhoff, CD (eds), Aging and Decision Making: Empirical and Applied Perspectives. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, pp. 371–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Romaioli, D and Contarello, A (2019) Redefining agency in late life: the concept of ‘disponibility’. Ageing & Society 39, 194–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, GW and Bernard, HR (2000) Data management and analysis methods. In Denzin, N and Lincoln, Y (eds), Handbook of Qualitative Research, 2nd Edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 769–802.Google Scholar
Sörensen, S and Pinquart, M (2000) Preparation for future care needs: styles of preparation used by older Eastern German, United States, and Canadian women. Journal of Cross-cultural Gerontology 15, 349–381.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Suddendorf, T, Addis, DR and Corballis, MC (2009) Mental time travel and the shaping of the human mind. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Series B, Biological Sciences 364, 1317–1324.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Toothman, EL and Barrett, AE (2011) Mapping midlife: an examination of social factors shaping conceptions of the timing of middle age. Advances in Life Course Research 16, 99–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
US Bureau of the Census (2021) Historical Income Tables: People. Available at https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-people.html.Google Scholar
Warden, EA, Plimpton, B and Kvavilashvili, L (2019) Absence of age effects on spontaneous past and future thinking in daily life. Psychological Research 83, 727–746.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weller, CE and Newman, K (2020) Increasing risks, costs, and retirement income inequality. Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics 40, 69–104.Google Scholar