Conflict Perspective

Aging and the Elderly SOCI 1306 Conflict Perspective Conflict perspective theorists believe that society is fundamentally unstable and that it is an institution that marginalises everyone else while favouring a wealthy and powerful few. Conflict theory's central tenet is that social groupings struggle with one another over limited resources and power. When the concept is applied to the ageing population of society, it implies that older people compete with younger people, for instance, to keep a particular portion of resources. This rivalry can eventually turn into a confrontation. For instance, some claim that the elderly get a disproportionate amount of society's resources. The enormous expenses of Medicare and Social Security are a major source of anxiety during lean economic times. These two programmes account for around 28% of all tax revenue, or one out of every four. Social Security benefits were paid by the federal government in 1950 for a total of $781 million. The payouts are now 870 times more. The government made a $296 billion payment in 2008 (Statistical Abstract 2011). The geriatric population of the country is seeing a sharp increase in medical costs. Even while some older citizens have more access to care, it is important to remember that racial, social class, and gender differences can significantly affect the financial resources accessible to the elderly. Within the conflict viewpoint, there exist three traditional ideas on ageing. According to modernization theory (Cowgill and Holmes, 1972), the concurrent processes of industrialization and modernization are mostly to blame for the elderly's decline in social standing. Elderly people are less respected in modern communities and are more likely to be socially excluded. Strong societal conventions compelled the younger generation to look after the older before industrialization. The nuclear family is now more common in industrialised cultures than the extended family. As societies grow more individualistic, standards for caring for the elderly shift. Taking care of an ageing relative is viewed as a voluntary duty in an individualistic industrial culture, one that may be neglected without fear of social repercussions. The main tenet of modernization theory is that elderly people will have a place in society and a defined function as long as the extended family is the norm, as it was in preindustrial countries. Because they are unable to work outside the house, the old have less to give monetarily and are viewed as a burden as cultures get more contemporary. This model, which can be used for both rich and developing countries, predicts that as individuals get older and become less of a financial burden, they will be abandoned and receive less assistance from their families. Age stratification theory (Riley, Johnson, and Foner 1972) is another hypothesis under the conflict viewpoint. Age stratification theorists were the first to propose that members of society may be stratified by age, just as they are stratified by race, class, and gender—a notion that may seem apparent now that we are aware of ageism. diverse age groups will have diverse access to social resources like political and economic power since age is the foundation of social control. Agerelated behavioural norms—such as those pertaining to roles and proper conduct—determine what individuals in a certain age group may and cannot legitimately do. An older lady wearing a bikini, for instance, can be viewed as abnormal as it goes against the convention that minimises the sexiness of older women. Each age group has its own set of norms that have developed from societal conceptions of what it means to "act their age." American workers are no longer required to retire at a set age, thanks to changes made to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), which brought attention to some of the ways that our society is stratified based on age. When the ADEA was first passed in 1967, it offered protection against a wide range of age discrimination and addressed issues such as age-based layoffs, job advertisements that specified age restrictions or preferences, and the denial of healthcare benefits to individuals who were older than 65 (U.S. EEOC 2012). The idea of age stratification has faced criticism due to its extensive scope and disregard for additional types of stratification and their potential intersections with age. For instance, given on his past access to political and economic power, one may contend that an older white guy holds a more powerful role and is far less constrained in his choices than an older white female. Last but not least, exchange theory (Dowd 1975), a rational choice approach, contends that as we become older, we become more dependent on other people and have to acquiesce to their wishes more and more as we have less means of forcing others to do so. In fact, because relationships are built on reciprocal contributions, older people's social networks will shrink as they lose the ability to provide resources. According to this paradigm, the only way to stay alive is to manage your resources, such as by taking care of a sizable inheritance or using child care to participate in social exchange networks. In actuality, the theory could rely too heavily on the notion that people are calculative. It is frequently criticised for placing an excessive amount of focus on material trade and undervaluing intangible goods like friendship and love.