Age and Identity
What does oldmean, anyway? Sociologists believe that age is less a biological con-
dition than a social construction. Depending on the norms of their society, a 15-year-
old may play with toy soldiers or fight in real wars, a 20-year-old may receive a weekly
paycheck or a weekly allowance, 40-year-olds may be changing the diapers of their
children or their grandchildren, and a 60-year-old may be doddering and decrepit or
in the robust prime of life. It is not the passing of years but the social environment
that determines the characteristics of age.
Prior to the twentieth century, people became adults astonishingly early. Girls
were allowed to marry at age 14 or even earlier, though most would not go through
puberty until sometime after their eighteenth birthday. Jewish boys were considered
adults at age 13. The Anabaptists of Reformation Europe disapproved of baptizing
infants, as the Catholics did, so they baptized only “adults,” by which they meant
anyone over the age of 14.
Today, people seem to postpone adulthood until halfway through their lives. We
regularly say “He’s 23 years old—just a baby,” and even 30-year-olds are often con-
sidered immature rather than real grownups. Middle age starts in the 50s, and old
age—who knows? The boundaries are pushing upward every year.
With so much change and so much redefinition, one would expect age to dimin-
ish in importance as a social category. What does it matter if you graduate from
college at age 20 or age 50? If you date someone 20 years older? If your boss at work
is 20 years younger? Why should the number of years you’ve been alive make any
difference whatever?
Yet age remains one of our major social identities; we assess ourselves and each
other—positively and negatively—based on age as frequently as on class, race,
ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. These judgments result in social stratification, for
distributing rewards and punishments, and for allocating status and power.
To the sociologist, age is a basis for identity and a cause of inequality. As an
identity, sociologists differentiate between your chronological age—a person’s age
determined by the actual date of birth—and functional age—a set of observable char-
acteristics and attributes that are used to categorize people into different age cohorts.
Anage cohortis a group of people who are born within a specific time period and
therefore assumed to share both chronological and functional characteristics.
Traditionally, the sociological study of aging was called gerontology, which is
defined in the American Heritage Dictionaryas the “scientific study of the biologi-
cal, psychological, and sociological phenomena associated with old age and aging.”
However, sociologists now understand that such a study, while essential, tells only
half the story. While age is a facet of identity at all moments through the life cycle,
most of the inequality based on age occurs at the upper and lowerends of the life
span—that is, among the young and the elderly. In high-income countries like the
United States, older people often wield a great deal of political power, but they still
must battle negative stereotypes and limited social services. Children, teenagers, and
young adults often lack any power, prestige, and resources, but they are seen as filled
with potential, and we strive to look like them. And while we tout compassion for
our elders and commitment to our kids, our social and economic policies often short-
change or harm both of these vulnerable groups. Today, the study of age and aging
in sociology requires that we study both identity and inequality among both the young
and the old—as well as everyone in between.348 CHAPTER 11AGE: FROM YOUNG TO OLD