Precarity in late life: Understanding new forms of risk and insecurity

Abstract

Abstract:Background: Population aging and longevity in the context of declining social commitments, raises concerns about disadvantage and widening inequality in late life. Objective: This paper explores the usefulness of the concept of precarity for understanding new and sustained forms of risk and vulnerability in late life. Method/Approach: The article reviews the definition of precarity, its uses in a range of scholarly fields including social gerontology, and argues that the concept be extended into considerations of aging and late life. Analysis: We argue that a broadened lens of precarity that is inclusive of aging, time, and care, can be used to situate risk in the economic and political context. Further, that doing so, challenges individual notions of risk, and demonstrates how vulnerabilities not only accumulate, but change at the moment of needing care, in the context of austerity. Discussion/Implications: We conclude that contemporary conditions of austerity and longevity intersect to produce and sustain risk and disadvantage into late life. The concept of precarity thus holds potential to draw attention to disadvantage carried into late life, and render visible new forms of vulnerability that affect late life. Highlights (for Journal of Aging Studies):• Reviews definition and key uses of precarity • Explores the potential of the concept of precarity at three locations • Argues for the extension of precarity into late life • Suggests that precarity is different as a result of care in the context of austerity

“Old age” as a social location: Theorizing institutional processes, cultural expectations, and interactional practices

“…On the one hand, as individuals grow older they bring with them relations of inequality they have experienced throughout their lives and that hold structuring effects (Abramson & Portacolone, ; Ferraro & Shippee, ). This leads to differences, for example, in the experiences of diverse sub‐populations, such as older women and men (Krekula, ; Russell, ), among migrants (Grenier, Phillipson, et al, ), and among members of racialized groups (Jackson, Govia, & Sellers, ). On the other hand, an important distinction between age relations and other forms of inequality is that all people who live long enough will experience “old age” in the chronological sense and, to some extent, share the disadvantages associated with ageism in a youth‐oriented culture (Abramson & Portacolone, ).…”

“…Moving beyond “structured dependency,” more recent analyses consider how neo‐liberal conditions exacerbate late life inequality (Grenier, Phillipson, et al, ). With concerns about government spending, population aging is often considered a burdensome social problem.…”

“…Finally, how do individuals experience late life, and make sense of “being old”? Indeed, the graying of societies and growing inequality (Abramson & Portacolone, ; Grenier et al, ; Phillipson, ) call for increased attention to age relations and their implications for power, status, and constraint in late life.…”

Precarious Aging: Insecurity and Risk in Late Life

“…Although the concept of precarity has been used to highlight altered social conditions, financial insecurity, and exclusion in late life, we suggest that precarity has to do with more than labor and economic conditions and can become particularly acute in late life as a result of the need for care and the accumulation of disadvantage in the contemporary social, economic, and political context. Since the 1980s, state support for public and social programs and services has been dismantled across a range of international contexts, driven by the neoliberal priorities of increased private and for‐profit care and an emulation of effectiveness and efficiency in public service domains such as housing, health, and care .…”

Realizing and Maintaining Capabilities: Late Life as a Social Project

“…Part of this role must also be focused on the maintenance of navigational agency, which will be a particular priority for older adults with dementia. Maintaining opportunities for adults with cognitive impairment to exercise their agency could be enabled by providing them with chances to evoke their long‐term memories and to reminisce about their previous life experiences and commitments, thus provoking the capacity for self‐reflection and fostering ongoing self‐development . Or agency could be exercised if these adults are provided opportunities that do not depend on individual memories (which may be unpleasant for some people), or the ability to recall them, but instead allow people to engage with storytelling, music, the visual arts, and the emotions they evoke…”