Читать книгу Aging - Harry R. Moody - Страница 26

Today, in the early 21^st century, we no longer have a shared map for the course of life. The timing of major life events has become less and less predictable at all levels of society. In upper socioeconomic groups, for example, a woman with a graduate degree and career responsibilities may delay having a first child until age 35 or later; in other parts of society, where teenage pregnancy rates have soared, a 35-year-old woman may well be a grandmother. We are no longer so surprised when a 60-year-old retires from one career and takes up a new one, perhaps in consulting if the retiree has been an executive or a professional or in small electronics repair if the retiree has been a technician. In many other ways as well, the life course is becoming more “deinstitutionalized,” more fragmented, disorderly, and unpredictable (Held, 1986; Hockey & James, 2003). Major life events are no longer parts of what are often considered to be predictable or natural patterns.

Although the rigidity of the linear life plan has failed to keep up with new demographic realities, it did offer a degree of security. In the new “postindustrial” life course, we are increasingly each on our own. Familiar social institutions such as marriage and employment can no longer be counted on for security throughout adulthood, and therefore the last stage of life also becomes less predictable.

Society has not yet come to terms with the meaning of “aging” in such unpredictable times. Optimists believe that medical science could permit us to delay aging-related decline until later and later in life. Yet economic forces seem to move in the opposite direction. In science and engineering, knowledge becomes obsolete within 5 or 10 years, so life experience counts for less than exposure to the latest technological advances. On the one hand, biology promises to postpone aging, but on the other hand, social forces such as age discrimination make the impact of aging on individuals more important than ever.