• Objectives
• Young Aging
• Modernization
• Cyberclass Discussion #2a
• Elements of Modernization: Exercise 1
• Cyberclass Discussion #2b
• Introduction to Social Security
• Key Points

Readings

• Torres-Gil, The New Aging: Introduction and Chapters 1&2 (pp:1-73)

• Understand the concept of young aging
• Apply the concept of modernization to aging policy
• Analyze how values affect policy choices
• Describe historical precursors to Social Security
• Compare and contrast values before and after the Depression
• Describe the social and political context in which Social Security was enacted

Young Aging

As you learned from your reading, there are three stages of aging: young aging, modern aging and new aging. This week we will focus primarily on young aging, and look at the historical and social context in which it occurred.

Modernization

We will start this section by reviewing the theory of Modernization, which offers one of the major explanations for the changing status of elders in American history. Modernization is a multi-disciplinary concept formulated by economists, sociologists, political scientists, and anthropologists. Modernization theory is an heuristic or framework used to help us organize our thinking about how various trends evolved to transform both our society, and how people think about aging. It suggests that the status of older persons is inversely related to the level of technological development in a society. In other words, in societies that lack technology, old persons enjoy high status. When technological advances begin to drive how a society is structured, older persons begin to lose status.

The United States experienced modernization in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. Like other industrial nations, the United States has evolved from a traditional, land-based, stable society to a dynamic, entrepreneurial, mobile society.

Cyberclass Discussion Please go to Cyberclass Discussion 2 and discuss why increased technology might cause the elderly to be devalued. Cyberclass Discussion 2a

1. Industrialization and technological innovation transformed society from an agriculturally based, craft-oriented economy, to mass production based on work in the factory. The work demanded new skills, for example, printing presses changed from type set by hand (craft) to machine labor to run machines. Mass production involved repetitive and often tedious tasks that emphasized speed and accuracy. You are probably familiar with the classic film, Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin in which Chaplin works on an assembly line that suddenly starts to pick up speed. As it goes faster and faster, Chaplin, the worker can no longer keep pace. More recently Lucille Ball replicated Chaplin's parody of factory work. Her task was to put wrappers on candy. As the machine picked up speed and the candy came faster she started falling behind. She dealt with her inability to keep up by attempting to eat some of the candy and stuffing some in her mouth. Despite her effort, she failed to keep pace and was soon terminated. Mass production of goods in factories was more efficient and resulted in greater economic wealth in society as a whole. It also led to emphasis on progress and material satisfaction
   
   
2. Democratization rested of the principle of equality for all. This contrasted with traditional societies where status and power was vested in elders. Indeed, some traditional societies were characterized as "gerontocracies".
   
   
3. Bureaucratization and the rise of a professional work force. Bureaucracies developed to deal with standardized, predictable work which characterized increased use of technology and resulted from the rise in large complex organizations. Around the turn of the century, benefits of improved productivity led to reductions in the work week, which was about 60 hours a week in 1880, to about 45 hours a week in 1930. This lead to leisure time.
   
   
4. Urbanization occurred with the migration of workers from farming communities to urban centers. While the population growth during the 19th century was 12 fold, cities grew 87 fold. The result was that by 1920 half the population lived in "urban centers," defined as having 2,500 or more residents.
   
   
5. Demographic changes included:
   1. increases in immigration, which increased diversity and provided a stream of new workers who competed, to some extent, with older adults for jobs, and
   2. changes in birthrate and life expectancy, leading to a society with proportionately less younger individuals and more elderly.
      
      
6. The rise of science. The scientific method was increasingly valued as a way of knowing about the world. There was greater interest in knowledge and education, which was increasingly accessible and valued.
   
   
7. Material progress and individual achievement. Trends included competition, the rise of capitalist free market society and with it a rise in the demand for achievement and efficiency.

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All the above societal changes never occur independent of each other or in a societal vacuum. Rather they are intertwined based on the historical times and the timing of other geo-politcal forces that exist at a given time.

Read Joyce S. Fienberg's master thesis abstract to understand how Samoans in Los Angeles have encountered these forces, and how their lives today are different.

How did these elements transform aging? Contrary to traditional society in which elders are highly respected, old age was increasingly perceived to be a "social problem." From the perspective of a "throw away mass production culture," old is bad and new is good, especially as technology advances so rapidly that things are quickly outmoded. Increasingly, old age was characterized as a time of illness, deterioration, eccentricity, odd behavior, irrelevance and obsolescence.

How did society attempt to address this so-called social problem of aging? First elders started groups that promoted self-help and political action. Elders were encouraged to mobilize and to tap into their own resources. Second, other groups began to work for the improvement of elders. These included social workers, private businesses, and in some states, government.

These activities heralded the beginning of the movement to empower the elderly, although the word "empowerment" wasn't used per se, and activities were not very earth shaking at the start. Of course, there was a gradual change in the response to Modernization that involved conflicting values and tensions in society. Achenbaum does an especially nice job in noting the value dilemmas that have confronted us as a society as we have struggled to make policy choices that address the "aging problem." We will be discussing these value dilemmas in the next section.

The Great Depression

The statistics from the Great Depression Era are incredible:

• 5,000 banks folded in the first 3 years
• 90,000 businesses failed
• unemployment went from 3% to 25%
• average weekly wages went from over $25 to under $17 (a loss of about 1/3)
• farm income was cut in half
• Montgomery Ward stocks went from 131 to 4
• US steel stocks went from 262 to 21
• the common stock index went from 260-90

Cyberclass Discussion Can you identify what a similar drop would look like today? Cyberclass Discussion 2b

There was a dramatic increase in homelessness during the Depression. Many formerly middle class individuals sought food from bread lines. Think about what such an experience does to your belief in yourself. How does it affect the confidence you have in your ability to survive and to thrive, and your faith in your community and your country?

Not surprisingly, people's belief systems and values began to change. Those who had strongly believed in self-reliance, individualism, equality, and the rewards of hard work, and who now found themselves unemployed and increasingly dependent with no public support, began to question these basic tenets.

Have you ever talked with people about this period? Many literally ended up on the streets, hungry and without help. Today we are witnessing large scale poverty and economic depression in the former Soviet Union. During the Great Depression 100,000 Americans applied to work in the USSR because they despaired of finding work in the United States.

It should be remembered that in the face of this crisis, the policy goal was to preserve what we had, to weather the storm and keep the country going. This meant supporting the capitalist economy, although FDR's proposal was to rely on federal intervention to guide the invisible hand and to ensure that self interest lead to collective benefit. In addition to traditional government roles of transportation and national security, FDR believed that the Federal government should take a leadership role in collective efforts to enhance individual well-being, including the right to a comfortable old age. This strategy involved a subtle shift in values from the individualistic to the collective, and increasing support for the belief that we need to help each other.

Voices from the Depression: Bill Casano (a child of Italian immigrants from Chicago). You need to have RealPlayer installed on your machine to hear him.

Voices from the Depression: Marie Beech, born in 1891, was interviewed in Granbury, Texas in 1992. Beech told stories about training under Juliette Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of America, and about marching her troop in a New York women's suffrage parade. She also talked about the Great Depression. Read the transcript.

Voices from the Depression: Dorothy Nyswander, a world leader in public health education and a founder of Berkeley's School of Public Health, was born in 1894. She was interviewed in her home on November 29, 1994. Some of the stories she told were about the Great Depression. Read the transcript.

How did this shift affect the elderly? Many who had set aside savings for their old age lost everything in the stock market crash. Unemployment among older men was thought to be about 30%. Older adults turned first to their families, then to private charities and local government. Families had become more mobile, as a result of the modernization trends discussed earlier, and many were themselves struggling with poverty and unemployment. With this disaster came greater public acceptance that it was not possible to prepare totally for old age in terms of having an adequate nest egg. FDR's Social Security program was a dramatic shift in the role of government in the United States. Rather than relying on individual action, the policy developed a collective response to income maintenance in old age.

To find out more about the Great depression click here.

Introduction to Social Security

Starting at the turn of the century and accelerating as the modern aging period began (the 1930s), interest groups formed to promote solutions to poverty in old age. Christine Day, in her book entitled What Older Americans Think: Interest Group and Aging Policy, discusses several important organizations that promoted the adoption of old-age pensions in the 1920s. These were the American Association for Old Age Security (AAOAS), the American Association for Labor Legislation (AALL) and the Fraternal Order of the Eagles. The results of their efforts, particularly the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, were that some states did enact modest old-age pension plans during the 1920s. Much of what these groups proposed was considered when the Social Security Act was legislated.

Aging interest groups interested in pension development proliferated after the Depression began to take its toll. One group know as "Ham and Eggs" proposed that pensions be offered in California on the condition that pensioners would be required to spend the money within a year. The purpose was twofold: to offer economic support in old age, and to stimulate the economy. Founded by a local radio personality, Robert Noble, this group promoted its plans through radio programs, rallies, and mass marches.

The largest group, also from California, was founded by a Long Beach physician by the name of Dr. Francis Townsend. He wrote a letter to a local paper launching what came to be known as the Townsend Movement. Dr. Townsend proposed a plan in which the government would give persons over 60 years of age $200 each month. The program was to be financed through a sales tax, and like "Ham and Eggs" the money was to be spent within a given time period. This time, however, it was 30 days. Although these plans to develop an old age pension system were different from Social Security, they served as precursors paving the way for our current Social Security program. Some like the Townsend Movement enjoyed a substantial following. By the mid-1930s, the Townsend Movement had over 3 million members.

We will take up Social Security in a few weeks. At this point it is important to note that the Social Security Act was a dramatic departure from the familiar role of government. The Act symbolized a transformation in the way we view government in this country in that:

1. The federal government entered the social welfare arena.
2. The elderly were recognized as a group entitled to public policy recognition. For the first time, a segment of society (those over the age of 64) received an entitlement, or a right to public dollars in "old age."
3. The program called for an "intergenerational transfer" in that one group (working Americans) pay and another group (retired Americans) receive financial support.
4. Social Security was built on a tax system in which one was required to pay a tax. But unlike other taxes it included an entitlement to specific tangible benefits that were to be returned to the tax payer.

To encourage all the diverse stakeholders to agree, Social Security included a number of compromises and areas of ambiguity. The Social Security Act represented major and substantive changes, as we will discuss when we come to the section on Social Security. However, the program was implemented in an incremental fashion. To make it easier to accept Social Security, the program started small. Costs were low with benefits, expenses and those covered increasing over time.

The economy, which started to recover during the late 1930s, rebounded during and after World War II. Although no new changes in social policy occurred, and some suggest that the momentum of the New Deal was slowed, productivity soared. The powers of presidency expanded, as did the federal bureaucracy.

Increasing numbers of Americans moved into the middle class, more opportunities for higher education were available with the GI bill, and older workers were needed and valued during the war effort. We will take up the social climate of the Great Society next.

• Modernization is a multi-disciplinary concept formulated by social scientists and can be useful to help us understand how people think about aging. Modernization theory suggests that in societies that lack technological developments old persons enjoy a high status while in technological societies older persons begin to lose status.
• Modernization took hold in the United States in the latter part of the 19th century and early 20th century. Industrialization, democratization, bureaucratization, urbanization, demographic changes, the rise of science, and material progress and achievement contributed to a period of "young aging."
• In modern society, old age is seen as a time of illness, deterioration, eccentricity, odd behavior, irrelevance and obsolescence. Old age is increasingly seen as a social problem.
• In response to the negative views of old age in modern society elders started groups that promoted self-help and political action, and were encouraged to tap into their own resources. Soon other groups-- including social workers, private businesses, and government-- began to work for the improvement of elders.
• As a result of the Great Depression there was a dramatic increase in poverty and homelessness, and many people found themselves unemployed and increasingly dependent on public support. Older adults first turned to their families then to private charities and the government for assistance.
• FDR believed that the federal government should lead in collective efforts to enhance individual well-being, including the right to a comfortable old age.