This chapter focuses on prescriptive views of aging, which reflect expectations about how older adults should be and behave. We identify four prescriptive views of aging: Disengagement (making way for young people, using resources moderately, not trying to appear young), activation (staying fit and healthy, maintaining an active and productive lifestyle), wisdom (knowing what is important in life, transcending a personal and self-focused perspective on life), and dignity (leading a dignified life, being respected, and valued). Further, we present two studies in which we investigated our proposed model of prescriptive views of aging. In the first study, we showed that endorsement of disengagement and activation increases with age, reflecting an internalization of those age-based prescriptions. Although these two prescriptive views seem to make opposite claims on older people, we found a positive correlation between them, indicating that both disengagement and activation tapped into the overarching social expectation that older adults should not become a burden to others or to society. In the second study, we found evidence that young people implicitly endorse all four prescriptive views of aging. Prescriptive views of wisdom and dignity specify a meaningful identity for older people and provide guidelines for living well in old age. Alternatively, prescriptive views of disengagement and activation are more ambiguous in that individuals and societies may misuse them for social control functions that aim at justifying maltreatment and exclusion of older people based on the assumption that life becomes less worth living in old age.

The present chapter highlights the role of subjective views on longevity for individual and societal aging. It first introduces perceptions and ideals regarding lifetime and the conditions and characteristics of a long life as subjective views on longevity and embeds them into a preliminary research model. The model presents contextual and societal influences, vicarious and personal aging and life experiences, as well as end-of-life influences as biographical influences accumulating over an individual’s lifespan. Subjective views of aging, attitudes towards death, as well as personal belief systems are then introduced as more proximal and psychological antecedents of subjective views on longevity. In regard to the immediate formation of subjective views on longevity, it is highlighted how individuals seem to actively differentiate between perceptions and ideals of longevity and may choose ideals in concordance or discordance with what they perceive as likely. Consequences of subjective views on longevity are highlighted on both the individual level (i.e., affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences) and the societal level. Lastly, subjective views on longevity are more explicitly related to views of aging and aspects of their multidimensionality and multidirectionality are discussed.

Views of aging (VoA) are subjective evaluations of the aging process. Using a range of operationalizations, VoA have gained remarkable popularity in social-behavioral aging research, owing partly to their established associations to health-related parameters. Emerging research makes a strong attempt to tie subjective evaluations to objective biological processes, mainly by employing so-called biomarkers of aging. A major hope is to better understand by these means potential pathways operating between VoA and health-related outcomes. In this chapter, we present a brief introduction to the concept of biomarkers of aging with a focus on their application in VoA research. We then outline and synthesize previous and current evidence pointing to an interrelation between VoA and biomarkers of aging such as, for example, the relationship between VoA and inflammatory markers. We arrive at the conclusion that research on VoA and biomarkers of aging has surpassed a first stage of evidence generation in which a “proof of concept” in terms of ties between VoA and selected biomarkers has been successfully accumulated. Still, whereas some more differentiated and specific insights into the causal pathways between VoA and health outcomes emerged, more coordinated and elaborate research efforts, employing simultaneously multiple biomarkers of aging as well as multidimensional measures for VoA in longitudinal and ideally also interventional designs, are a much-needed future research goal.

Our primary objective is to synthesize the current state of the field regarding between- and within-person processes in subjective views of aging and to suggest areas for future directions. We combine data from three distinct daily diary datasets to describe within-person fluctuations in subjective aging from adolescence through old age. We underscore the need to concurrently examine between- and within-person processes, especially as they interact to reveal person and environment interactions. For example, individual differences in aging attitudes interact with daily experiences of age-related change to predict daily emotional and cognitive well-being. Those who generally feel more positive about their own aging are actually more vulnerable to daily increases in loss-based age-related experiences. We draw on Bronfenbrenner’s (Am Psychol 32(7): 513–531, 1977) ecological model and synthesize it with Diehl et al.’s (Dev Rev 34(2): 93–113, 2014) model of awareness of aging to highlight the importance of continuing to investigate person and environment interactions across multiple systems of influence. We challenge the field to think and act globally as the majority of our current findings come from W.E.I.R.D. (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) cultures.

A major body of evidence points to the significant associations between views on aging (VoA) and key developmental outcomes, such as health and well-being. While much of this evidence comes from longitudinal studies, research on VoA has also been strongly experimental since its inception. Our chapter aims to provide an overview about the major lines of prior experimental research on VoA and by this means derive its role for present and future VoA research overall. We first offer an organizing scheme for the existing body of experimental work on VoA. We arrive at the conclusion that previous experimental research on VoA with older adults has been conducted in a broad range of studies with different dependent variables and experimental manipulations, showing the importance of VoA and their impact on a wide range on phenomena. We then go into more detail of VoA research that has been done in the past decade. Here, our conclusion is that recent experimental research on VoA is taking up societal challenges, such as the aging workforce, older people in the health care system, and stereotype threat elicited by digital technologies. At the same time, current VoA research is adding to the differentiation of established effects in the prior literature as well as helped to identify moderating and contextual conditions not considered previously. We end with a set of recommendations for future experimental VoA research including strengthening the needed liaison with other research formats.

Employment represents an important life context in which people experience their own and others’ aging, including age-related increases (i.e., growth), stability (i.e., maintenance), and decreases (i.e., loss) in abilities, other characteristics and resources, and functioning. Relationships between chronological age and various work and career outcomes, including job performance, work-related attitudes, and occupational well-being, have been extensively investigated. In addition, a growing number of studies in the fields of organizational psychology and management have focused on workers’ subjective views of aging. The overarching goals of this chapter are to review conceptual and empirical research on the role of subjective views of aging at work and in the transition to retirement, and to outline directions for future theory development and research. The chapter first outlines the scientific and practical importance of considering workers’ subjective views of aging, above and beyond chronological age. Second, conceptual work and empirical findings in three established research areas, including age (meta-) stereotypes and age-based stereotype threat, perceived and subjective age, and occupational future time perspective in the work context are described. The chapter concludes with directions for future theory development and empirical research on subjective views of aging at work and in the transition to retirement. To this end, conceptualizations and research findings on subjective views of aging constructs that have received less attention in the context of work and retirement, including perceived relative age, perceived control over development and essentialist beliefs about aging, awareness of age-related changes, satisfaction with aging, and subjective life expectancy, are summarized.

Theories emphasizing the importance of nature versus nurture have been persistently and critically debated over the last century. But what do we know about the structure and consequences of beliefs regarding the fixed and inevitable versus malleable and modifiable nature of aging? In this chapter, I argue that individuals differ in their (non)essentialist beliefs regarding the inevitability (“aging is set in stone”) or malleability (“age is just a number”) of aging and that these mindsets can have powerful consequences. Emerging research suggests that (non)essentialist beliefs about aging can have important consequences for individuals’ subjective age (i.e., how young or old a person feels) and how they deal with aging-related losses, negative age stereotypes, and perceptions of social status. Overall, this chapter aims to shed light on the role of (non)essentialist beliefs about aging in affecting how individuals understand and respond to aging-related changes and challenges. Further, I will review research concerning the measurement, distinctiveness, and stability of essentialist beliefs about aging and whether these beliefs can be experimentally activated and changed in the short and longterm. I will then review results of recent cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental findings that shed light on the correlates and underlying mechanisms of essentialist beliefs about aging. In sum, I provide a novel conceptual perspective highlighting the importance of (non)essentialist beliefs in aging research.

With increasing age, the experience of both chronic conditions and serious acute health events (e.g., stroke) becomes more likely. Consequently, most younger and older individuals consider aging primarily as a phase of life with increasing physical and cognitive decline. At the same time, the fact that aging is also associated with gains and growth is largely overlooked. This is of particular importance, because a number of studies have shown that views of aging play an important role for medical conditions and premature mortality in later life. This chapter reviews existing findings on the role of different views of aging for health in later life. It illustrates how self-perceptions of aging, which are shaped by societal thoughts (stereotypes) and feelings (prejudices) about aging and old age, can develop to have a substantial impact on individuals’ health. Moreover, the chapter describes physiological, behavioral, and psychological pathways by which views of aging can affect health outcomes and considers when and to what extent views of aging act as moderator and/or mediator for other factors influencing health. Finally, the chapter closes with recommendations for practice and future research, which should focus on the investigation of pathways by which different views of aging affect similar or different health outcomes.

Subjective views of aging often change in a myriad of different ways across life, yet we are only beginning to understand pivotal questions around the how, when, and why of such transitions. The objective of the current chapter is to provide a systematic overview of conceptual perspectives and empirical research about the ways in which subjective views of aging change along time metrics that evolve more slowly (macro-time scales) and those that evolve more rapidly (micro-time scales). To do so, we start with reviewing insights gained from research examining age-related changes. In a second step, we discuss how subjective views of aging change as people approach death and then broaden the perspective by considering time-to/from-events metrics more generally, including how subjective views of aging may change as people move into and adapt to major life transitions such as disability and widowhood. In a third step, we discuss possible ways in which subjective views of aging may change over micro-time scales from one moment, one day, or one week to the next as people go about their everyday lives. In a final step, we consider how subjective views of aging may be intertwined between long-term partners and other confidants such as intergenerational pairs. We also discuss how integrated multi-time-metric designs that track both macro- and micro developmental dynamics will help us better understand key questions of temporal ordering, lead-lag dynamics, and mechanisms underlying stability and change in subjective views of aging and their predictive effects for key developmental outcomes.

AbstractThis chapter introduces the topic of social exclusion in later life and presents a rationale for this edited volume. It will provide an overview of existing knowledge, focusing specifically on research deficits and the implications of these deficits for scientific study in the area, and for effective and implemental policy development. This chapter will outline the aim and objectives of the book in response to these deficits and will outline the book’s structure and the critical approach that is adopted for the volume, and that is rooted in state-of-the-art conceptual knowledge.

AbstractThis concluding chapter outlines key contributions of the book, indicating how the individual chapters have pushed beyond the current state-of-the-art scientific knowledge on social exclusion of older people. Drawing together some of the major cross-cutting themes emerging from the different parts of the book, the chapter highlights interconnections between the contributing chapters and deepens our understanding of the conceptual framing of social exclusion of older people. We use this frame as a basis for developing a new research agenda that relates not only to future empirical and conceptual research, but also to policy development in the field of social exclusion in later life.

AbstractThe international literature presents growing evidence of the impact of life transitions in older age on experiences of social exclusion. Older people’s relationship with place potentially plays a mediating role in this interrelation. However, the specific mechanisms through which the older adult place relationship mediates exclusionary outcomes of life-course transitions remain poorly understood in the study of ageing. This chapter investigates how older adults’ relationship with place is interlinked with life-course transitions and old-age social exclusion. To address this interrelation, we present case studies from three different countries, Germany, Ireland and Poland, focusing on individual experiences of retirement and bereavement, and analyse the cases by drawing on the concepts of spatial agency and belonging. We conclude by examining how spatial agency and belonging can protect and empower older people at critical junctures in their lives.

AbstractThis chapter explores how exclusion from care provision in rural areas can be understood as place-based social exclusion. The analysis focuses on case studies of Czechia, Poland and Germany and compares their approaches to providing care to older rural dwellers. While recognising the heterogeneity of these nations and their rural areas, a spatial framework is used to illustrate how some specific features of rural areas may influence the provision and availability of care. Two examples are explored: the use of professional homecare services by older people; and informal care and assistance provided by older people in the community. Our research shows that, regardless of the size of the country or its proportion of remote or depopulating areas, discourses on care in rural areas share various common features. A large amount of informal care is provided in both the family-oriented Polish countryside and in Czechia, a country with a midsize rural population and comparatively common use of professional homecare services. In Germany, a growing number of rural communities were found to have established local aid associations to support disadvantaged older people in the past decade; however, this approach is viewed as unsustainable given the specificities of the rural contexts.

Human existence is characterized by the simultaneity of vulnerability and potentiality. Vulnerability is reflected above all in the susceptibility to illness, potentiality in mental (cognitive, emotional, spiritual) development as well as in the ability to adapt successfully to new situations. As we get older, we become more vulnerable. In consequence, the individual is confronted with the task of searching for meaning in borderline situations. A central thesis of this chapter is that a significant developmental potential in old age consists in the ability to be creative in borderline situations.

Aging is rarely considered in relation to spatial concepts. However, a closer look reveals that the concepts of space and place, living and dwelling are essential to questions about the life and care of older people. The spatiality of one’s own being, the possibility of capturing space for oneself and of moving from place to place, is crucial to human life – not only for a young person, but especially, and in a more existential way, for someone older. From an anthropological perspective, the spatial dimension of aging appears particularly relevant for the constitution of the self, its borders, limitations, and bodily vulnerabilities, as well as for its relations to and treatment by others. In this contribution, I argue that a focus on space can reveal a particular dependency on the surrounding world, on the bodily inhabitation of space, and on other people’s view.

This chapter focuses on aging and care. Against the backdrop of considerations on historical anthropology and results of aging research, it discusses societal value systems that are crucial to the development of adequate care for the elderly. Subsequently, the anthropological aspects of care and their political consequences are considered. A phenomenological characterization of care work points out structural problems and permits conclusions for a differentiated approach that is adequate for the heterogeneous needs and capacities of older people.

This chapter focuses on aging and generationality from the perspective of historical anthropology. Three anthropological aspects are essential in this context: the importance of origin and birth, the question of time and progress, and the aspects of mediation and appropriation. In conclusion, the chapter offers reflections on recent social developments in the context of generations and on the current importance of aging and old age.

This chapter examines the anthropological implications of aging and old age in the context of the temporal structuredness of human life. It explores how our conceptions of aging and old age receive their shape and significance by their embeddedness in an overarching temporal arc, a general “timeline” structuring individual pathways through life as well as generational roles, relations, and cycles. The chapter first gives a brief overview on the great historical and sociocultural variety of images and interpretations of human temporality. It then takes a closer look at three different levels of temporal structuredness of life: first, the fundamental coordinates and parameters of human existence in time, second, the sociocultural models of the life course, and third, the erratic individual trajectory through life. The discussion focuses on the implications of temporal structuredness on all three levels and draws conclusions for our understanding of human temporality in general and aging and old age in particular.

This introduction provides an overview on aging and old age in philosophical, theological, and historical anthropology. It explains the volume’s conception and objectives and gives a brief outlook on its systematic structure and on the content of the contributions.

This chapter focuses on the individuality of aging. From the perspective of an anthropology of human life as a whole, it interprets aging as a radicalization of the human condition. In this perspective, the radical individuation of the self in the process of growing old comes to the fore. To age means to become oneself in finite, unrepeatable life situations.

This chapter focuses on the question what constitutes aging with dignity. I argue that it is not least our lack of willingness to grant old age its own place in life that makes older people vulnerable for violations of their dignity. In this sense, dignity can also be a question of the correct anthropology.

When considering violent and aggressive acts against vulnerable older adults, possible victim-offender constellations are manifold. In recent years, specific safety risks in institutional care connected to aggressive behaviour of residents against fellow residents have received increasing attention. While not easily accessible for research, resident-to-resident aggression appears to be widespread; it includes severe forms of violence (up to lethal outcomes), affects quality of life and institutional climate and poses significant challenges for institution and nursing staff. This chapter reports data from a multimethod study in Germany, combining a standardized survey among nursing home staff on experiences of resident-to-resident aggression / resident-to-staff aggression as well as on institutional problem handling and individual coping strategies with a qualitative interview study in nursing homes including residents’ voices and those of staff and management. Violent and aggressive incidents between residents are highly diverse not only with regard to the nature of the acts (including physical violence, sexual harassment, verbal aggression, humiliating and socially excluding behaviour) but also with respect to timing, location, situational triggers, and personal, situational, institutional, and societal background factors. Findings are discussed with reference to perspectives for prevention and the significance of staff training in the frame of any prevention strategy targeting resident-to-resident aggression in institutional care.

This chapter explores societal understandings framing the marketization methods of outsourcing, public investment funding and customer choice. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of capital, it demonstrates acknowledged capital forms and the relationships among them, particularly those related to technology and care. The chapter shows how innovations and related business opportunities are legitimized through their contribution to improved productivity and that care innovation can be conceptualized as a technological advancement. The study argues that such a conceptualization is rooted in the one-sided economic approach toward the female dominated care work, and elder care in particular, as a societal cost.

This chapter provides an overview of Universities of the Third AgeThird age (U3As) in Germany with respect to their history, institutional set-up, and participants. The situation in Germany is characterised by the integration of U3As into public universities. In contrast to many other countries, U3As in Germany are, in most cases, not independent institutions, but part of public universities and predominantly financed by the universities’ budgets and participation fees. Thus, in the German federal system U3As are not controlled by the individual states’ Ministries of Education, but by their Ministries of Science. These structures lead, on the one hand, to a high academic level of the courses offered by German U3As and, on the other hand, to a marginalisation of the U3As in many universities, since they usually do not train young researchers and are not financed by the state as opposed to the degree programmes. However, due to these structures U3As can actually profit from the infrastructure provided by the universities and from their close proximity to research. However, while the structures may be very specific to the German landscape of U3As, didactical concepts popular at German U3As are only partly based on these institutional structures and are also successful in other countries with other organisational framings. Taking into account the continuously increasing number of people in their post-retirement phase of life, increasing participation rates of older adults in adult education, and a higher level of formal education among the coming generations of senior citizens, a growing number of U3A students are to be anticipated. More professionalised organisational structures with their own budget and staff could be one future model able to tackle these challenges, with such structures already in place in a small number of universities.