Modern attitudes toward older adults in the aging world: A cross-cultural meta-analysis.

Abstract

Prevailing beliefs suggest that Eastern cultures hold older adults in higher esteem than Western cultures do, due to stronger collectivist traditions of filial piety. However, in modern, industrialized societies, the strain presented by dramatic rises in population aging potentially threatens traditional cultural expectations. Addressing these competing hypotheses, a literature search located 37 eligible papers, comprising samples from 23 countries and 21,093 total participants, directly comparing Easterners and Westerners (as classified per U.N. conventions) in their attitudes toward aging and the aged. Contradicting conventional wisdom, a random-effects meta-analysis on these articles found such evaluations to be more negative in the East overall (standardized mean difference = -0.31). High heterogeneity in study comparisons suggested the presence of moderators; indeed, geographical region emerged as a significant moderating factor, with the strongest levels of senior derogation emerging in East Asia (compared with South and Southeast Asia) and non-Anglophone Europe (compared with North American and Anglophone Western regions). At the country level, multiple-moderator meta-regression analysis confirmed recent rises in population aging to significantly predict negative elder attitudes, controlling for industrialization per se over the same time period. Unexpectedly, these analyses also found that cultural individualism significantly predicted relative positivity-suggesting that, for generating elder respect within rapidly aging societies, collectivist traditions may backfire. The findings suggest the importance of demographic challenges in shaping modern attitudes toward elders-presenting considerations for future research in ageism, cross-cultural psychology, and even economic development, as societies across the globe accommodate unprecedented numbers of older citizens.

Aging in America: Ageism and General Attitudes toward Growing Old and the Elderly

“…These findings were supported by statistically significant results in regard to correlational analysis of the relevant variables (e.g., age and fear of getting old) and multiple analysis of variance interpretations. These findings have been noted in other studies looking at prejudice and stereotypes of the elderly and some common themes do seem to emerge, such as the elderly often being perceived as being frail, senile, incompetent, unproductive, and burdens on society [4] [9] [18]. It would appear that we also live in society that values youth over old age.…”

Attitudes to Ageing and Change in Frailty Status: The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

“…Negative stereotypes about ageing are common [31]. Understanding the extent to which such internalised stereotypes affect health outcomes in older people has particular relevance in our rapidly ageing populations.…”

Intergenerational resource tensions in the workplace and beyond: Individual, interpersonal, institutional, international

“…The overall results were surprisingly, and significantly, in the opposite direction from lay beliefs: Easterners emerged as more negative overall toward older adults (overall standardized mean difference = -0.31; North & Fiske, 2015), and the majority of individual studies found this same pattern. However, these omnibus results were qualified by intraregional moderator analyses: First, East Asian regions appeared marginally more negative toward older generations than were South Asian regions; likewise, Western Europe emerged as more negative than Western Anglophone countries (i.e., U.S.A., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand).…”

“…A multiplemoderator meta-regression incorporating these variables found that, controlling for GDP (which was not a significant predictor of older-adult attitudes), population aging speed and cultural collectivism both predicted negativity toward older adults. This suggested that, controlling for level of recent industrialization, countries with more rapid population aging strain are coming to devalue their elders-especially in countries with high traditions of collectivism, which may backfire with a growing, potentially burdensome older population (North & Fiske, 2015).…”

“…To test these competing hypotheses -that is, an Eastern positivity (cultural values) prediction versus Eastern negativity (population aging/demographic strain) -we conducted a meta-analysis, synthesizing cross-cultural studies that directly and quantitatively compared Easterners and Westerners on their attitudes toward older adults (North & Fiske, 2015). To focus on the question of whether Easterners or Westerners revere their elders more, we distilled each study into one overall, standardized mean difference effect size: negative effect sizes representing a given study's finding that Easterners are more negative than the West, and positive effect sizes signifying the opposite.…”