Family Life Cycle, Work Career Patterns, and Women's Wages at Midlife

Abstract

Social gerontologists generally agree that the status of the elderly in the US and in other industrial countries is quite low but their status is not uniformly high in nonindustrial societies. The status of the elderly tends to be high in agricultural societies because the elderly usually control property right; elderly status is lower in hunter-gatherer societies because resourses are usually open to all. The status of the elderly tends to be higher in societies with extended and stem families than in those with nuclear families although this relationship may be spurious due to the association of family types with economic systems. The authors test the hypothesis that the status of the elderly varies according to family type regardless of economic system. Specifically the authors test whether elderly status varies with type of economy; the presence or absence of inheritance customs; and patterns of postmarital residence especially in cases of patrilocal residence. Data on 122 cultures from the Standard Cross Cultural Sample of Murdock and White 1969 and the Human Relations Files are examined for prestige power and privilege for elderly males and females. Elderly status is significantly lower in exploitative than in agricultural economics. Elderly status also varies with family structure. For men and women status is highest in small extended families and lowest in large extended families. The elderly have higher status in societies that have inheritance customs. Their status is lowest in neolocal societies highest in patrilocal societies and intermediate in other unilocal societies. The effects of inheritance customs and small extended families are negligible. This study suggests that the importance of family structure is overated as a source of elderly status.