Chronological quarantine and ageism: COVID-19 and gerontology's relationship with age categorisation

Abstract

In March 2020, the government of the United Kingdom advised all people aged 70 and above to self-isolate stringently for a minimum of 12 weeks in response to COVID-19. The British Society of Gerontology criticised the government for ignoring individual differences, deeming the approach ageist. Former British Geriatrics Society president David Oliver contested accusations of ageism, arguing that the approach was pragmatic discrimination based on epidemiological evidence. This debate catalyses core gerontological tensions regarding ageism, discrimination, categorisation and heterogeneity. A critical realist perspective reveals that both the government and gerontology are struggling to negotiate these irresolvable tensions. Contrary to the binary debate, age-based isolation simultaneously represents pragmatic discrimination and value-driven ageism. However, it does so partly because it relies on a chronologic epistemology that positions age as a potent biosocial axis of meaningful difference, thereby reflecting gerontology's own ageism. The ethical purism of gerontological accusations of ageism is thus somewhat misplaced, potentially obscuring an opportunity for reflection on value-laden engagements with age in social research.

Anti-Ageism Social Actions: Lights and Shadows

“…Should older people isolate themselves instead of requiring widely implemented social distancing measures? [12,47]. Secondly, it is necessary to urge scientists to use randomised and controlled studies.…”

“…This statement is based on the analysis of the public discourse in social media and public announcements made by government representatives, emphasising the extreme frailty of older adults and their cost to society and overgeneralising some of their traits of the entire older population, which is, precisely, highly diverse. Older adults are a high-risk group; thus, the health and safety behaviour modifications implemented during the pandemic have been more restrictive for them than for people of other ages, influencing, at the same time, how society views older adults (i.e., ageist stereotypes) and agitating intergenerational tensions [8][9][10], although chronological age is not an objective formulation for a policy implementation since we can find a diversity of health statuses within older age groups [11], even there are older people that are relatively less vulnerable than many younger people and vice versa [12].…”

Negotiating agency and belonging during the first lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic: an interview study among older adults in England, UK

“…These ageist policies act as a type of ‘chronological quarantine’ put in place by the British government. 12 By advocating physical distancing and encouraging social isolation, popular discourses placed older adults outside the realm of belonging, potentially stigmatising them and stripping them of a sense of agency in their social environments. Throughout this article, we follow definition of agency by Emirbayer and Mische 13 as a:…”

Respecting Older Adults: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Even though age-stratification of disease risk is not uncommon in epidemiological research (Fletcher, 2020), the current pandemic has brought to the front of public discussions the problem of ageism. Ageism is not a new problem; in fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that ageism is one of the last widely socially accepted and strongly institutionalized forms of prejudice (World Health Organization 2020).…”

“…What catalysed the ample and still ongoing debates regarding the ageism inherent in the measures for containing the spread of the virus is governments' responses regarding age-based isolation. Older adults were and still are instructed to maintain stricter social isolation than other individuals, and for a longer period, in spite of all the risks this can entail for their overall well-being (Reynolds 2020;Fletcher, 2020;Cox 2020;Brooke and Jackson 2020).…”