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Beyond Successful Aging 2.0: Inequalities, Ageism, and the Case for Normalizing Old Ages
[Renegotiating identity and relationships: Men and women’s adjustments to retirement]

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  • Toni Calasanti
  • Neal King
  • Deborah Carr

Abstract

This article reviews challenges to Rowe and Kahn’s Successful Aging (SA) framework, particularly those that focus on the ways social inequalities, including ageism, stratify age groups and affect possibilities for SA. We then assess the authors’ replies to these critiques. We find that SA 2.0 maintains a naturalization of outcomes of age relations, and retains both its focus on personal choice and its indifference to inequalities. We advocate a paradigm shift that recasts the problems of aging in three distinct ways: (i) avoids treating old age as a problem; (ii) avoids treating medical and other maladies as results of aging; and (iii) treats the problems of old age as results of age relations instead. By focusing on age relations, this paradigm goes beyond calls to examine inequalities over the life course, and seeks to normalize old ages, valuing both different modes of aging and old age itself.

Suggested Citation

  • Toni Calasanti & Neal King & Deborah Carr, 2021. "Beyond Successful Aging 2.0: Inequalities, Ageism, and the Case for Normalizing Old Ages [Renegotiating identity and relationships: Men and women’s adjustments to retirement]," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 76(9), pages 1817-1827.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:76:y:2021:i:9:p:1817-1827.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gbaa037
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Dale Dannefer, 2003. "Cumulative Advantage/Disadvantage and the Life Course: Cross-Fertilizing Age and Social Science Theory," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 58(6), pages 327-337.
    2. Ilene H. Zuckerman & Priscilla T. Ryder & Linda Simoni-Wastila & Thomas Shaffer & Masayo Sato & Lirong Zhao & Bruce Stuart, 2008. "Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Treatment of Dementia Among Medicare Beneficiaries," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 63(5), pages 328-333.
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