Social Policy and Aging: A Critical Perspective / Edition 1

by Carroll L. Estes

Overview

This groundbreaking book provides comprehensive treatment of the political economy of aging by a scholar widely credited as the founder and key thinker of this field in the US and internationally. The body of work presented in this volume, in developing this critical perspective, aims to contribute to the understanding of old age and aging in the context of problems and issues of the larger social order in the world's most advanced capitalist nation, the U.S.A.. Since Estes' first writing on the political economy of aging in 1979, there has been growing recognition and incorporation of her critical perspective as one of the major paradigms in the field of aging.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803973473
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	03/30/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Carroll L. Estes is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the founding and former director of the Institute for Health & Aging (1979-98) and the former Chair of the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, School of Nursing, UCSF. Dr. Estes is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences and past president of the Gerontological Society of America, American Society on Aging, and Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. She has served as consultant to the U.S. Commissioner of Social Security and the U.S. Senate and House committees on aging for more than two decades. Her career and theoretical perspective were firmly established with the publication of The Aging Enterprise (Jossey Bass, 1979), which became an instant classic in the field of aging research. She subsequently published two books with Sage: The Long Term Care Crisis (1993) and Social Policy and Aging (2001). In 2001, she received the Distinguished Scholars Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Aging and the Life Course (a sort of life-time achievement award) and has received other major awards such as The Distinguished Scholarship Award of the Pacific Sociological Association (1989), The Donald Kent Award of the Gerontological Society of America (1992), and The Beverly Award of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (1993). The original version of the proposed book has been credited as the foundation of her work in the citations for each of these awards, and her work is nationally and internationally recognized.

Table of Contents

Political Economy of Aging
A Theoretical Framework
Critical Perspectives on Aging
The Medicalization and Commodification of Aging and the Privatization and Rationalization of Old Age Policy
The Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector
Systemic Crisis and the Political Economy of Aging Services
Crisis, the Welfare State and Aging
Ideology and Agency in the Social Security Privatization Debate
Sex and Gender in the Political Economy of Aging
Inequality and Aging
The Creation of Dependency
The Medical Industrial-Complex and the Aging Enterprise
A Political Economic Critique of 'Productive Aging'
The Underdevelopment of Community-Based Services in the United States Long-Term Care System
A Structural Analysis

Editorial Reviews

This study of the political economy of aging considers the impact of globalization, developments in health care restructuring, long-term care, and Social Security privatization, with attention to issues of race, class, and gender. It offers a synthesis of social gerontological theory and scholarship concerning the welfare state. Estes teaches sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. Other authors include scholars in sociology, behavioral sciences, public health, ethnic studies, reproductive health, and nursing. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews