Objectives Popular responses to the pandemic illustrate ageism’s pervasiveness and the extent of collective acquiescence to its newest expressions. We explore these themes by analyzing Twitter reactions to “calculated ageism” – a term we use to refer to a political figure’s edict that older adults should sacrifice their lives if it will mitigate the pandemic’s economic damage to younger people. Methods Using thematic analysis, we examine tweets (n=188) responding to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s March 23, 2020, statement that encouraged generational self-sacrifice. Themes that emerged included positions of support or opposition and tweeters’ critiques. Results The large majority of tweets – 90 percent – opposed calculated ageism, while only 5 percent supported it and 5 percent conveyed no position. Opposition centered on moral critiques, political-economic critiques, assertions of older adults’ worth, and public health arguments. Support centered on individual responsibility and patriotism. Discussion While prior research reveals ageism to be solidly entrenched in popular culture, our study finds that limits prevail and identifies the reasons underlying them. The most common reasons for opposing calculated ageism center on its immorality and on its privileging of the economic interests of the powerful few over the many, patterns suggesting that the boundaries of ageism are influenced by core beliefs about fairness. They also are shaped by a bedrock conviction that older lives have value. This intergenerational solidarity could be leveraged to reduce ageism during the pandemic and beyond.

Background and Objectives Chronic pain, which affects more than one in four middle-aged and older adults, can have profound implications for everyday behaviors, like driving. The literature examining it, however, is relatively small and is limited by its reliance on patient populations and lack of attention to some driving-related behaviors and self-assessments that may signal the start of a transition from driving. Research Design and Methods We address these issues using data from an online survey of Floridians aged 50 and older that was conducted between December 2020 and April 2021 and funded by the Florida Department of Transportation (n=3,832). We run multivariate regression analyses to examine the association between pain’s interference with driving and five driving-related outcomes: self-rated driving ability, driving frequency, self-regulated driving, perceived nearness of driving retirement, and planning for driving retirement. Results Results indicate that experiencing more pain that interferes with driving is associated with worse self-rated driving ability, more frequent self-regulated driving, and greater planning for driving retirement. It is not associated with driving frequency or with anticipating that driving retirement will occur in the next five years. Discussion and Implications These findings indicate that greater pain may hasten the transition from driving, along with planning for it. These patterns suggest that pain may increase people’s risk of isolation and other negative outcomes that can follow driving retirement; however, pain’s effect on planning may reduce these risks. By focusing on transitioning from driving, our study reveals a largely overlooked benefit of reducing pain – It could extend people’s years behind the wheel.

An extensive literature examines subjective aging – a construct encompassing many aspects of individuals’ views of aging, such as age identity, aging anxiety, awareness of aging, and views of life stages. A factor receiving attention within this research is gender, with studies revealing much about gender differences not only in subjective aging but also its health and behavioral consequences. However, we argue that the literature is limited by its focus on gender as an individual-level characteristic – rather than a profoundly social element emerging within interactions, pervading institutions, and constituting a system of inequality that intersects with others, including age. Addressing this limitation, our chapter applies a feminist perspective to the study of subjective aging. This perspective draws into focus the implications for subjective aging of gender’s social embeddedness and provides an illustration of the interconnection between the personal and political spheres.

Medical sociology gives limited attention to age—a surprising observation given the aging of the population and the fact that age is among the strongest determinants of health. We examine this issue through an analysis of articles published in Journal of Health and Social Behavior ( JHSB) and Sociology of Health & Illness ( SHI) between 2000 and 2019. One in 10 articles focused on age or aging, with attention increasing over the period. However, the journals differed. More JHSB than SHI articles addressed it, but fewer focused on the latest life stages when frailty often appears. We discuss three dimensions of age that would enrich medical sociology: as a dimension of inequality akin to race and gender with similar health effects, as an institution interacting with the medical one, and as an identity—again, akin to race and gender—through which people process their experiences in ways that affect health.

Physical pain is a gendered experience: Women report higher levels of it than do men. This pattern may stem from differences in experiences of the body. Women are socialized to be attentive to its functioning, appearance, and sensations, while men are discouraged from paying much attention to their bodies. Little is known, however, about the precise social and economic pathways leading to gender differences in pain, especially in middle and later life when pain is most prevalent. We examine this issue using data from Wave 3 of Midlife in the United States (2013-2014). We consider four possible explanations for women’s more frequent reports of pain: economic security, physical and mental health, social relationships, and discrimination. Results indicate that women are more likely than men to report experiencing chronic pain, as well as greater effects of it on their everyday lives. However, only two of the explanations contributed to explaining this association. Economic security and physical and mental health accounted for substantial portions of the association between gender and pain – 57 and 73 percent, respectively. In contrast, no mediating role was observed for either women’s social relationships, in particular the greater strain they experience in them, or their more frequent reports of everyday and lifetime discrimination. The final model including all the possible explanations revealed that gender was no longer significant, suggesting that middle-aged and older women’s greater pain is explained by their worse health and economic circumstances.