One of the most important concerns that not only the certain region or country but the whole globe is facing with is the societal aging. Societal aging refers to the “social and demographic process that result in the aging of a population” Aging of the population would impact different aspect of social life. For instance, as the baby boomers aging, the evolvement of those generation in different community would increase. Also, the expectation of better healthcare and ethical issues around the aged people has grown (Morgan & Kunkle 2016: 6).
This is about a long time ago that Malthus (1766-1834) predicted the crisis of overpopulation indicating “population must always be kept down to the means of subsistence”. He was trying to depict the crisis
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The life expectancy in Europe and America averaged about 30 to 40 years in 1800 A.D. However, through medical breakthroughs this expectancy has increased double -75 years- in the last two hundred years. One important reason of this increase is the discovering of what causes diseases. The development of medical science in different ways has yielded so many advances in recognizing the pathogenic factors of diseases and how to fight with them. This progress has resulted significant alteration in the factors of premature death due to diseases (Medical Health tests …show more content…
Environmental, behavioral and genetic factors would impact the life span and the demography of a society in unlike ways. Physical environment which has significant role in the aging of the people is one of those factors that would function in both ways. For instance, if an environment demands the people to be more engaged in different communities and events, the process of aging would delay; conversely, if a society’s demand from the elderly is too little, they would stay at home and the process of aging would accelerate Morgan & Kunkel 2016:
During the Industrial Revolution of the Victorian Era, life expectancy was so low due to the lack of sanitation, working conditions, and less medical knowledge that we have now. At the time, the average age people were dying was at 35 years old (Lambert). The age, however, varied depending on where one lived. Normally, people who lived in cities died at a younger age than people who live in rural areas. The class that one was in also greatly impacted a person’s life span. It mainly impacted poor working-class communities, because of the poor conditions that came with being a member of that class (Wilde).
Thomas Robert Malthus (1776-1834), in his “Essay on the Principle of Population”, stated that wars and disease would have to kill off the population because it grows faster than the food supply unless people could limit their number of children. The Malthusian Drill in the Brave New World was what women had to go through to prevent births (e.g. contraceptives and medications).
Atchley, R. C. (1997). Social forces and aging: An introduction to social gerontology (8th ed.).
Life expectancy in many parts of the world has increased since 1800 (Life Expectancy by Age, n.d). To understand these changes we can study the demographic transition, the changes in birth and death rates over extended periods of time. The industrial revolution has significantly improved the conditions of humans and in 20th century death rates declined but the birth rates remained unchanged. In many of today’s developed countries both rates have declined; however, in developing countries, while death rates have declined due the improvements of living conditions, the birth rates are still high which has caused a record high population growth (HAUB & GRIBBLE, 2011).
“An Essay on the Principle of Population” is written by Thomas Malthus where he outlines his theory on population growth. He thought that if population continued to grow, food production wouldn’t be able to keep up with demand and he believed that many people would die due to famine. Either people would have to use more contraception to drop the birth rate, or the death rate would increase due to wars, disease or
Malthus’ An Essay on the Principle of Population, he states “I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, that food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, that the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state.” He came up with the Population Principle in which he argued that population, when unregulated, increases geometrically, whereas subsistence increases arithmetically. This then becomes an issue when the population outweigh the amount of food available. Malthus then said that once this level was surpassed, that famine would be the main source of the limit to population growth and that premature death was the most natural way to control the
There were times when society as a whole would be living slightly higher than subsistence level, but generally either war, famine, or disease would strike and society as a whole would fall back down to subsistence level. This was explained by Thomas Malthus in an essay he wrote in 1798 called An Essay on the Principle of Population. Malthus looked back through human history and found that in times of prosperity, populations were low causing incomes to be high, and in times of hardship populations were high and income levels were low. Malthus argued that the advances in technology that caused incomes to increase therefore did not affect the standard of living, but rather just increased population size. For example building the Roman aqueducts did not raise the standard of living for the Romans, it just allowed for a larger population to live at the previous standard of living. Malthus considered this phenomenon to be a trap because though increased incomes could support larger populations – paying for more food, shelter, clothing and so on – the increase in population would eventually lower wages. To defeat this trap, now known in Economics as the Malthusian trap, Malthus argued for population control in order to raise the standard of living. At the time, Malthus’ call for population control was the only foreseeable solution. However, the economists of the 19th century challenged Malthus’ solution and
One of the aspects of gerontology that makes for such interesting studies is the various social theories of aging that pertain to the issues and topics of the aged. Since the earlier days of the discipline at the dawn of the twentieth century up until today, the biomedical study, concentrating on the diseases and the decline of the aged has been a primary focus of gerontology. However, since the 1950’s over a dozen social theories, explaining the changes in social relationships and interactions as people age has been developed. The ideas behind these theories have evolved over time grouping them into categories of first, second and third generation or modern and postmodern (Hooyman & Kiyak, 2011, p. 313). Two theories that emerged in the
With aging comes the stereotyping of people of their age, additionally known as ageism (DEFINITION) for example, youth are intentionally rowdy and rule breakers. The stereotypes in today 's western society are that being a young adult is expressed the best, being skinny, use technology that prevents anti-aging and keeps a persons youthfulness. Aging has a negative connotation with older adults receiving the blame for most of the problems in today society, from election results and the apocalyptic demography making it worse, “which is the oversimplified notion that a demographic trend has a catastrophic consequence for society” (LEC). This has led people to think that aging is a social problem where they age blame that to much resource go towards older adults such as the large amount of taxpayer money for medical services and pensions.
Many do not like to talk about their age and their aging process, because to some, chronological aging has much more meaning than just the number of years that they have lived (Hooyman et al., 2015). Age really is just a number. There are centenarians and super-centenarians, like Flossie Dickey, who are still going strong at and living their daily lives with minimal restrictions (Hooyman et al., 2015), and people who struggle at the age of 80, it is all about aging successfully (Hooyman et al., 2015). What it means to age in society is a constantly changing concept, and now that the baby-boomers are starting to reach their older adult stages, maximum life spans are continuing to rise (Hooyman et al., 2015), and we see more centenarians and super-centenarians and skipped generation households (Hooyman et al.,
To begin with, individuals in the United States are now living past the age of sixty-five. The average life expectancy of individuals born today in the United States is 78.7 years. This is only made possible because of the improvements in medicine, nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle. Studies show that women can live longer than men. Social factors play a role in why women and men have a gap of life expectancy. These social factors are health attitudes, habits, lifestyles, and occupation. Men are more likely than women to die from most of the leading causes of death in the United States. The causes of death are associated with lifestyle.
As we age, we become more prone to a wide array of diseases, such as cancer and heart disease and treating these diseases most definitely helps us live longer but they do not seem to halt the natural aging process that eventually causes our bodies to weaken and wither away. New research suggests that, like several biological processes, the aging process could also be controlled and this could lead us to live much longer lives. However, commoners and bioethicists alike are often concerned about the bioethical issues pertaining to the life extension phenomena. They argue that the quality of life may be compromised in exchange for longevity and this may be due to intervention in the
...nsion occurs within the society because of this of the increase of life expectancy, and elderly persons working longer than they should.
Aging is a global issue because of the influx of older adults into the population scheme.
be formed about ageing and older people. Ageing can be measured in chronological age or