Critical Perspectives on Successful Aging: Does It “Appeal More Than It Illuminates”?

Abstract

"Successful aging" is one of gerontology's most successful ideas. Applied as a model, a concept, an approach, an experience, and an outcome, it has inspired researchers to create affiliated terms such as "healthy," "positive," "active," "productive," and "effective" aging. Although embraced as an optimistic approach to measuring life satisfaction and as a challenge to ageist traditions based on decline, successful aging as defined by John Rowe and Robert Kahn has also invited considerable critical responses. This article takes a critical gerontological perspective to explore such responses to the Rowe-Kahn successful aging paradigm by summarizing its empirical and methodological limitations, theoretical assumptions around ideas of individual choice and lifestyle, and inattention to intersecting issues of social inequality, health disparities, and age relations. The latter point is elaborated with an examination of income, gender, racial, ethnic, and age differences in the United States. Conclusions raise questions of social exclusion and the future of successful aging research.

Queering Aging Futures

“…The specific lines of theoretical work we are drawing on will be apparent from the literature we cite throughout. 4 See, for example, the special issue of The Gerontologist in 2014 (volume 55, issue #1) which was devoted to critical commentary on the concept of successful aging including [5][6][7][8].…”

Workplace Flexibility across the Lifespan

“…Moreover, the critical literature on aging also points towards the underlying power relations that establish societal and organizational norms about aging and the role of individual responsibility and proactivity. These norms shift a focus of aging of the workforce as one of the 'normal' processes within organizations towards perceiving older workers as a problem, who have to be incentivized to work and continue working, while at the same time shifting the responsibility for this to each older worker individually (Katz & Calasanti, 2015). These societal and organizational norms regarding successful aging align with employer perspectives on workplace flexibility, as it primarily focuses on how organizations may become more adaptable to changes in the environment by having the opportunity to hire and dismiss workers freely along with the needs of the company (Way et al, 2015;Wright & Snell, 1998).…”

“…At the same time, literatures on aging have relied intensely on notions of successful or productive aging (Kooij, 2015;Zacher, 2015), and the need for older people to remain active and employed during late adulthood. Again, these literatures have stressed the individual responsibility of people to remain employed, but also the 'norm' that one should be active and proactive when one becomes older, and attributing blame to individuals who are unable to be productive at higher age, or to age successfully in line with the (Western) societal norms of selfdirectedness, independence, and activity (Katz & Calasanti, 2015). Future research therefore should take a critical approach, acknowledging the multi-faceted aspects of workplace flexibility and aging, and refrain from imposing normative views of successful aging on research (and research designs).…”

The Importance of Research on the Perception of Successful Aging

“…1,2 Despite researchers' efforts to develop models for successful aging, there is still no academic consensus on the definition of the term. 3,4 There are three main explanatory models on successful old age: the Rowe and Kahn model 5 The Socio-Emotional Selectivity 1 and the Corrective and Preventive Proactivity. 6 We also highlight researches focused on the subjective perception of the elderly in relation to their aging.…”