Social and Biological Aging: Contradictions of Development

Abstract

Social aging is defined as a process of relinquishing meaningful social functions; of becoming prematurely obsolete. It is a result of liberation at an earlier age than in the past from parental responsibilities and work. Its occurrence has resulted from declines in mortality family size age at birth of last child; from declining activity rates for older ages and declining employment in agriculture and independent professions. While biological aging is being postponed in developed countries social aging is occurring at increasingly younger ages. To explore this phenomenon a simplified mathematical model is constructed which allows the life cycle of a cohort to be subdivided into four possible combinations of work and parental responsibility: 1) totally occupied years (years lived working and with dependent children) 2) totally liberated years 3) years lived working but without dependent children and 4) years lived with dependent children but not working. This model is applied to Italian census data from 1881-1981 in order to examine changes in the life cycle subdivisions over the last century. The most radical transformation is found for both men and women in the totally liberated years. For women this period increased from 5 years in 1881 to 23 years in 1981 or more than half the expectation of life at age 35. For men the increase was from one year in 1881 to 12 years in 1981 or about one third of expectation at age 35. Data is presented for 1881 1931 1951 1961 1971 and 1981 showing various measurements of years lived after age 35 by life cycle subdivision sex and age group. Possible future developments and societal and demographic reactions to the idleness of the old are discussed.