The Culture Connection

Some cultures claim to venerate their elders, and others make seniors take a back seat to youth. But sociologists say that old people need more than respect to age well. They must maintain their sense of identity and remain contributing members of the community.

When a young person encounters an older person in Japan, the junior bows lower and longer than the senior does. Japanese elders get the first dip in the hot bath and the first serving at meals. This reverence, one would think, should translate into a better quality of life for older folks.

But social gerontologist Erdman Palmore of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, says that despite their respect, Japanese people know as little about the elderly as do Americans. And although they talk about honoring their elders, the ideal is hard to live up to in modern-day Japan, says social gerontologist Robert Atchley of Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. Demands of urban life cut into the ability of Japanese to give enough attention and care to their venerated population. For instance, many middle-class women have to work, detracting from their ability to care for elderly parents at home, and seniors can be packed four to a room in nursing homes, says Atchley.

Sociologists and anthropologists have found that veneration does not necessarily lead to happier and healthier living. But one factor that can arise from heightened respect for the elderly does: whether older people are allowed--or expected--to continue to contribute to society. And although many cultures profess to honor older women, in reality, women often fare worse than their male peers because they are considered less important to the community than are men.

Some social scientists argue that seniors' slide from positions of respect in America stems from the institution of Social Security during the Great Depression. "Retirement wasn't created because old people couldn't work," says Atchley. In addition to reducing poverty, part of the goal of the retirement plan was "to lure [older] people out of the work force." The government wanted the scarce jobs to go to people who were younger and had families to support. As a result, Atchley says, "now we have this image that people over 65 are kind of worthless in any kind of productive sense."

This notion then encourages Americans to categorize people based on age rather than their abilities. "In the U.S., you can be perfectly functional … but if somebody knows you're 65, you're old," says anthropologist Jennie Keith of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. On this point, societies that revere the elderly might have an edge. Some cultures, such as those in China and sub-Saharan Africa, don't stratify their societies on the basis of age. In these communities, older people work for as long as they can, thereby maintaining their ties and sense of belonging.

Some Western societies can approximate these attitudes. Keith has found that small, stable communities offer kinship and social connections that maintain old people's "personhood." People stay put in Momence, Illinois, population 3000, which allows seniors to be recognized for their lifelong contributions to the community. For example, an older person who has climbed the seniority ladder to become head of a social club finds respect from friends. Those achievements get lost in fluctuating suburbia, where newcomers see elderly citizens merely as the old guys who greet them at Wal-Mart.

Many elderly people lose their ability to function independently, however. When that happens, their quality of life depends on the resources of the family or community, says anthropologist Charlotte Ikels of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. When Ikels studied Hong Kong elders, she expected the culture's respect for the old to translate into better health for seniors. "They didn't have a particularly high degree of well-being" as measured by self-assessment, she says. Living with young family members during a period of high unemployment and political uncertainty appeared to overwhelm any beneficial effect positive cultural values might have on the eldest generation.

A good health-care system can help, says Keith. For example, old people in rural Ireland can stay in the towns where everybody knows them, partly due to a health-care system that pays for daily care such as nurses who visit seniors at home. Thus, relatives are released from caretaking burdens and can simply enjoy their elder kin. And in Sweden, where desire for independence is as strong as in the United States, home health-care services go out of their way to enable elderly people to stay in their homes, even to the point of modifying houses to accommodate age-related deficits, says Atchley.

Although holding certain values can pressure people to take care of their older family members, living at home might not be the best thing for some seniors. Medical sociologist Sara Carmel of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Be'er Sheva, Israel, investigated Arabic populations in Israel, who are stigmatized for putting elderly relatives in nursing homes. But Carmel found that more seniors who lived with their families complained of loneliness than did those who bunked in nursing homes.

In some cultures, home care can equate to indentured servitude. Mexicans value strong ties among family members, says geographer Ann Varley of University College London, U.K. Yet older women who are healthy enough to do so often try to live independently to avoid having to take care of the household. "There's a role for older women to play, and that's being the family servant," she says. "Some old women just don't want that."

Women face other challenges in their later years as well. Because men dominate so many cultures, oftentimes women have no resources such as pensions or land to help pay for their care in their old age. And where older men might gain stature as they "mature," gals become "old hags." To top it off, women generally outlive men. Men who've lost a spouse are far more likely to hook up with younger women who take care of them, whereas widows often don't remarry. So children more often take in their mothers, which consequently makes elder women seem more dependent, says Ikels, even if they are in good physical health. Keith agrees. "If you're in a stable community where you have a history, you're known as an individual," she says. "But if you move away to live with your daughter, you're an old lady."

To avoid such a fate, Keith recommends that older women nurture and protect social connections as zealously as they take calcium to maintain strong bones. For men and women who plan on moving to a community for older persons, she recommends doing so early in order to build up relationships. "All that personal history isn't vested like a pension--you can't carry it around with you," she says. When it comes to ensuring a happy old age, strong relationships in the bank outperform public reverence any day.

Mary Beckman is a writer in southeastern Idaho who banks on her favorite niece to take care of her .