Status Aspect of Age: Opportunities and Restrictions

Abstract

One of the most interesting aspects of the problem of age is that it is considered as an objective characteristic. The article discusses the main aspects of social restrictions related to age. The category of age inequality is analyzed. However, the category of age contains in itself an extremely large amount of semantic load, age-related social expectations, stereotypes of perception, and ways of self-identification. Despite the fact that aging is determined by biological processes, the age category itself has acquired a social dimension. At the same time, a set of social conventions associated with age can have both a positive value, associated with the expansion of opportunities and the acquisition of a favorable status, and a negative value. A negative manifestation of social age is to limit the range of opportunities available to members of society and to form a number of age restrictions. Within the framework of the system of social conventions, there are explicit and unwritten prescriptions, which together determine the decline in social activity, in fact, self-exclusion of the elderly from social life.