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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Ageing, corporeality and social divisions in later life | | Author(s) | Chris Gilleard, Paul Higgs |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 37, no 8, September 2017 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, September 2017 |
| Pages | pp 1681-1702 |
| Source | http://www.cambridge.org/aso |
| Keywords | Ageing process ; Biological ageing ; Retired persons ; Poor elderly ; Ill health ; Social inclusion ; Quantitative studies. |
| Annotation | Although research on the social divisions of later life has focused on class, gender, and more recently, sexuality as sources of division in later life, the division between the fit and the frail has tended to be ignored or viewed as an outcome of these other divisions. This paper challenges this assumption, arguing that corporeality constitutes a major social division in later life. This in many ways prefigures a return to the 19th century categorisation of those 'impotent through age', whose position was among the most abject in society. Their 'impotence' was framed by an inability to engage in paid labour. Improved living standards during and after working life saw the impotence of age fade in significance, such that in the immediate post-war era, social concern turned towards the relative poverty of pensioners. Subsequent demographic ageing and the expanding cultures of the third age have undermined the homogeneity of retirement. Frailty has become a major source of social division, separating those who are merely older from those who are too old. This division excludes the 'unsuccessfully aged' from utilising the widening range of material and social goods that characterise the third age. It is this social divide, rather than those of past occupation or income, that is becoming a more salient line of fracture in later life. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-170825207 A |
| Classmark | BG: BH: BB6: F:W6: CH: RNA: 3DQ |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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