Getting Older, Staying Busy: Civic Engagement and Productive Aging
By Martha Holstein

The media and scholarly texts remind us that the life course has been radically disrupted, that we are healthier in old age than ever before, and that we are eager to be productively engaged as long as we are able to do so, indeed, that we are obligated to keep on contributing (Bass et al., 2003; Morrow-Howell et al., 2001) Civic engagement and productive aging fit well within these current social and cultural parameters, which insist that baby boomers will transform old age. Popular phrases, such as we are only as old as we feel and 60 is the new 40, however, hide important complexities, and it is those complexities that make these cheerful scenarios problematic (see Holstein, 2006; Holstein & Minkler. 2003). If advocates of engagement and productivity sought only to open opportunities to volunteer - like the decades old RSVP program - or sought to remove barriers to employment for older workers who needed and/or wanted to work, then my problems would evaporate. But that is not the whole story. The story line is more complicated. Civic engagement has been described as a movement comparable to the civil rights movement and a new expectation—it is a duty for older people to keep contributing while they can (Reilly, 2006). This new obligation, based on good health and early retirement, can transform communities, thus relieving the pressure on public dollars (Freedman, 1999; Morrow-Howell, 2000; Harvard School of Public Health/MetLife, 2004).

Productive aging or, as some prefer, a “productive aging society” is both descriptive and proscriptive. Data on older people’s contributions to society “proves” that they are not “greedy geezers” draining society of resources but adding to it through employment, family caregiving, and volunteering. But here too, there is a proscriptive element—continued work is necessary for the well-being of society. A delayed retirement rather than an early or “normal” retirement is the goal. The operative word in the discourse around civic engagement and productive aging is choice, despite the strong elements of expectation and necessity, which are present in these discourses.

My warnings emerge from these mixed meanings. Which meanings we find most compelling depend in large part on the lenses we use to examine them. What we see through a lens of privilege is quite different than what we see through a lens of gender and class. A lens of privilege means “not having to notice or think about people who aren’t like you” (Lindemann, 2006). To be civically engaged or productive is a choice primarily for the privileged. There is a vast difference between using one’s life experiences and contacts to start a new housing service in one’s community or returning to work as a white collar consultant versus having to work at a minimum wage job just to make ends meet. Further, for the privileged, work and civic activities are sources of respect and often substantial earnings that also leave time for self-care and nurture and are a source of continued self-esteem. For women and people lower down on the income scale, work was often arduous and not a source of respect, leaving little time or resources for self-care and nurturance. Looking at civic engagement and productivity through their eyes might make it seem a burden rather than a privilege, one more expectation or necessity no different than what they experienced throughout their lives. This observation is not to suggest that many people, who worked very hard but have little in the way of income or assets, do not want to keep on giving. Many do but they ought not to be judged if they want to rest—even if they still have the good health to continue. That’s the difference between opening opportunities and creating new expectations.

The rush to decide what constitutes a good old age in the absence of serious and extended public discussion risks imposing a privileged perspective on everyone else. It means taking for granted that what is good for the privileged—healthy, white, relatively affluent, not disabled--is equally good for those people who do not share those characteristics. An important next step is creating opportunities for public discussion in settings where the risk of “group think,” which cannot see beyond the American myth of independence, is reduced. We need to hear from the poor and the near poor, from women, from people of color, from all those who do not wear the lens of privilege.

Martha Holstein, PhD, co-directs the Center for Long-Term Care Reform at the Health and Medicine Policy Research Group in Chicago. She is a respected speaker on ethical issues, feminist gerontology, and social constructionism, and has written or co-authored several books, including Ethics in Community-Based Elder Care.

References

Bass, S., Caro, F. & Chen, Y-P. eds. 1993. Achieving a productive aging society. Westport, CT: Auburn Press.

Freedman, M. (1999). Primetime: How baby boomers will revolutionize retirement and transform America. New York: Public Affairs.

Friedan, B. 1993. The fountain of age. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Gergen, K. & Gergen, M. 2000. The new aging: Self construction and social values. In Schaie, . & Hendricks, J. (eds.) The evolution of the aging self: The social impact on the aging process, pp.281-306. New York: Springer.

Gilleard, C. & Higgs, P. 2000. Cultures of aging: Self, aging and the body. New York: Prentice Hall.

Holstein, M. 2006. A critical reflection on civic engagement. Public policy and agency report. 16 (4), pp. 1, 21-26.

Holstein, M & Minkler, M. (2003). Self, society and the ‘new gerontology.’ The Gerontologist. 43(6), 787-796.

Lindemann, H. 2006. An Invitation to feminist ethics. New York: MGraw Hill

Morrow-Howell, N. (2000). Productive engagement of older adults: Effects on well-being. St. Louis, MO: Washington University.

Morrow-Howell, N., Hinterlong, J. & Sherraden, M. eds. 2001. Productive aging: Concepts and challenges. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Post. S. & Binstock, R. 2004. The fountain of youth: Cultural, scientific, and ethical perspectives on a biomedical goal. New York: Oxford University Press.

Reilly, S. Fall 2006. Transforming aging: The civic engagement of adults 55+. Public policy and aging report. 16 (4): 1, 3-7.