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Citizenship and Old Age: The End of the Road?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Paul Higgs
Paul Higgs
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University College London Medical School, Wolfson Building, Riding House Street, London W1N 8AA.
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Abstract

This paper is concerned with the interlinked issues of citizenship and the structured dependency of older people within Social Gerontology. It argues that implicit in much British Social Gerontology is a strategy of advancing the wellbeing of elderly people through the extension of citizenship rights. Absence of these rights leads to poverty, exclusion and ageism being commonplace experiences of large sections of the older population. This approach draws heavily on the ideas regarding social citizenship of T. H. Marshall who has influenced much mainstream social policy in Britain since 1945. Changes to the Welfare State since 1979 have seriously questioned the validity of this approach and many of these criticisms apply to the structured dependency approach. Recent work on citizenship can help us to see how the relationship between old age and citizenship has changed and how far theory in social gerontology needs to change to take account of these new circumstances.

Keywords

Citizenshipsocial gerontologysocial theory.
Type
Forum
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 535 - 550
Copyright
Copyright Cambridge University Press 1995

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