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History, Aging, Abuse and Neglect and Grecian Formula Economics

Jill Hightower, Executive Director
BC Institute on Family Violence

Face it, we are all getting older. Is that bad?

"More and more companies are getting rid of older workers and cutting back benefits to the people left as they try to cope with the costs of an aging work force," the consultant said. "Benefits and the way employees are treated are going to change very significantly.Employers are going to have more incentive to get rid of older workers. It's not age discrimination, it's seniority discrimination."
(Vancouver Sun , June 14 1995, page A4)

I find it a little hard to separate seniority and age. The headline on the article from which this quotation is taken says "More Older Workers Facing Axe As Firms Chop Costs." I have been noticing a lot of these headlines in the last few months, as I've spent some time thinking about the place in society of those of us over the age of 50.

I really had not seen myself as older until I attended a workshop held here in April to discuss the results of a study of Services for Abused Older Canadians. This study defined 'older adults vulnerable to abuse and neglect' as people aged 55 or older. When asked 'Why use age 55?', one of the authors said that many people are retiring early, in their 50s, and that "early retirement makes individuals more vulnerable". From a personal point of view, it is an interesting experience to find oneself defined as 'older and vulnerable'.

Unless we accept and build on the many positive aspects of aging there is little hope of affecting negative societal values and stereotypes.

Having been made aware that society has now burdened me with another invidious label (of course I had 'female' for longer than I can remember), I find I am spending more and more time thinking about aging within a capitalist economy whose popular culture promotes youth, even for the middle aged or older. How many of us "older persons" buy into these values and, as the advertisements say, attempt to look younger by "covering the gray". unless we accept and build on the many positive aspects of aging there is little hope of affecting negative societal values and stereotypes.

Older Canadians may well find themselves scapegoats for economic and demographic change. Is this elder abuse and neglect? No, it is not direct physical and emotional abuse, but it does support and encourage abuse and neglect. Societal attitudes and values are powerful and this power is expressed and exercised through individual social relations.

Is this a new phenomenon? I think not. Today there is increased recognition and concern about the abuse and neglect of older persons within families and institutions, but we must look at history, politics, economics and culture, which are all part of the larger societal context in which we live, if we are truly to address the many issues of aging. We are talking here about the use and abuse of power in society.

We know that the stigma of aging, and vulnerability of older persons to neglect and abuse are not limited to current times. If we look back to pre-industrial times we can readily find examples of the difficulties faced by older persons. Older women in particular faced great difficulties within families and the larger communities. Stearns (1986) notes that this contributed to the witchcraft craze that swept through many parts of western society from the 16th to the late 17th century. He attributes this to "a pervasive belief in western culture of the non-usefulness and danger of post menopausal women." (p.7) An ironic echo of this belief system appeared in a recent advertisement for the journal, Women and Aging, which asserted that "...in our youth oriented patriarchal society older women often find themselves either ignored, pitied or feared."

Immediately before the Industrial Revolution, economic power was largely based on land ownership and rights to farm, hunt or benefit from what the land produced. In many cases there was little opportunity for young people to get ahead in life or to have any semblance of independence until older members of the family released their hold on property, usually through sickness or death. Power then passed to the younger members of the family, with little guarantee that the surviving older members would be taken care of. In the English nobility, inheritance of the family estate was normally limited to the eldest male heir.

The industrialization of society brought with it many changes in regard to economic power and the position and relationship of older persons within their families. Young people could earn wages independent of their family and land, particularly in the growing urban areas. If they had the common misfortune to become disabled by industrial accident or disease, they would find urban unemployment and poverty unless they were lucky enough to be supported by the wages of a spouse or children. In the 19th and early 20th centuries many older persons continued to be housed in almshouses and hospitals. Almshouses performed a variety of social functions, housing what Lerman calls "...a disparate assortment of persons categorically associated with diverse social problems."(1982, p.20) Aging was one of those categorical problems.

The second half of the twentieth century has increased the focus and reliance on youth, with older persons seen more and more as a dependent segment of the population. In the early years of this century older persons had little or no financial means of support and were often dependent on their children. After World War II came an economic boom, the means and the political will to support the welfare state, old age pensions, a public health care system and private pension plans. The baby boom and immigration also have shaped the Canadian demographic revolution.

This shift from a verbal to a visual system of mass communications has meant that the contemporary meaning of 'elderly' is communicated through stereotypical visual images rather than through words.

Somewhat later came two other revolutionary changes, in both the entertainment media and the structure of the capitalist economic system. Throughout Canada, newspapers, magazines and radio were supplanted by television, initially the CBC and a handful of private channels, then the vast increase in visual options provided through cable and soon through satellite direct broadcast.

This shift from a verbal to a visual system of mass communications has meant that the contemporary meaning of 'elderly' is communicated through stereotypical visual images rather than through words. The second effect, of course, is to deliver a mass audience to advertisers and entertainment producers who have vested interests in communicating stereotypes that support the products, services and values they sell.

More recently, we have seen the internationalization of capital markets and corporate structures, resulting in corporations that have powers to manipulate or circumvent attempts at government regulations which are inherently limited by national boundaries while the corporations gain concessions by threatening to move facilities and jobs in their search for competitiveness.

One effect of this trend has been cycles of recessions followed by jobless recoveries. Related to this is the phenomenon of economic expansion that confers no benefits on the middle class. Add to these trends the export of industrial production to the Third World, and there is a surplus of labour. Two ways 'we' can deal with this surplus are by cutting wages and benefits, and by reducing the labour force. So 'we' slash the social safety net, and we lower the age of retirement, thus ensuring that more will have to live longer on less.

The 'we' in this is, of course, the electorate, with its values shaped in large part by the media images that advertisers choose in their interests. It is no accident that a hot area for multinational deal makers is communications, including entertainment producers and distributors, news organizations, and cable and telephone carriers who have a stake in the 'information superhighway'.

Are we still on the subject of elder abuse and neglect? I am talking about the institutions and values that permeate our society and shape the perceptions and actions of individuals in their homes. These are issues of power and control, and they are issues for our time just as the different issues of power and control were raised by the feudal system and the industrial revolution.

I think we need to change the assumption that the day after being on a payroll, a human being has no value to her or his community, family and nation.

Since Adam Smith we have been taught that value to society is the same as economic productivity. I think we need to change the assumption that the day after being on a payroll, a human being has no value to her or his community, family and nation. We cannot expect to do this by reason alone, because the argument is not made on this level. What needs answering is a more visual and visceral imagery, for example, the assumption that one should want to hide gray hair under a blond dye or brown rinse.

Consumerism means equating value with price, and valued objects with ownership. If consumerism replaces human relations, unproductive people become chattels. I am concerned that the language being used in debates about corporal punishment, for example, gets close to the concept of ownership of children, as in 'nobody can tell me I can't spank my child'. I am equally concerned that 'retired' gets equated with 'vulnerable' as well as 'unproductive'.

Major buzz words for the 1990's are downsizing, re-structuring and out-placement. (Late news: the Report on Business defines MIA as 'management initiated attrition', a pink slip by another name.) These are all part of our gloomy economic future.

This takes us back to the quotation I started with. If companies are looking at ways to cut costs by restructuring pension plans, replacing full-time workers with contract employees and benefit plans with cash, older workers are gong to be facing very difficult times. Canadian population dynamics ensure that the number of seniors will increase much more rapidly than the number of young people. But the numbers are a secondary issue. What is important is that we address the relationships between younger and older people in our society, which reflect values that we hold.

We who are older persons have to influence individuals and public policy so as to change the overwhelming attitudes of society toward aging and the older population. The assumption that on the day of your sixty fifth birthday you have become a useless member of society is but one example of the attitudes that each of us must challenge.

Issues of abuse and neglect of older persons are bounded by the societal context in which we live. History, politics and economics are all critical factors of that context that continually influence our individual power and position in society.

Lerman, Paul. (1984). Deinstitutionalization and the welfare state. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

Stearns, Peter N. "Old age family conflict: The perspectives of the past" in Elder abuse: Conflict in the family. Eds. Karl A. Pillmer and Rosalie S. Wolf. (Massachussets: Auburn House Publishing Co., 1986)