Moving on from old certainties

Social theories relating to older age are changing and developing. The old certainties about older people and their place in the social order are being swept aside as new agendas are followed in Great Britain and other Western countries. The readily adopted perspective that saw older people as neatly fitting within a particular stage of the life-course, defined by retirement at one end and death at the other is being questioned and theorising now increasingly starts from a perspective that sees older age as a meaningful period of life that warrants more considered attention. This means that some questions about older people and their place in wider society are being addressed for the first time.

The questioning and theorising is, in part, being driven by the demographic changes that are resulting in growing numbers of older people. They also result from agendas concerned with social inclusion, individual rights and freedoms and the questioning of traditional, often institutional, frameworks that have been the locus of care and support for older people in the past.

The paucity of social theories relating to older age has been pointed to by such analysts as Phillipson (1998) and Estes et al (1996). With regard to gerontology, that is the study of older age, Estes et al (p 350) referred to its “broad and fragmented theory”. And, as becomes clear in this chapter, such fragmentation remains. But given that gerontology is itself interdisciplinary, the fact that it may draw on social theories that are extant in different disciplines should come as no surprise. The attempt to include social alarms within such theories possibly adds to the fragmentation.

Wilson (2000, p 12), after reviewing the array of social theories pertaining to older age, lamented that “the idea that any one theory is going to be a useful guide to understanding the immense variety of later life begins to look optimistic”. She did, however, argue the need for any theory to take a life-course perspective that acknowledged that “men and women are not just old, they are ageing people with pasts and futures” (p 12). There are, in other words, certain things about the life-course that may warrant the development or adoption of social theoretical approaches specifically focusing on older age, albeit that elements may be borrowed from elsewhere.