Aging as a Social Process: Canadian Perspectives (review)

This is the fourth edition of this volume, but not a hurried subsequent edition. More than twenty years have passed since the first edition of this book came out in 1983, the second in 1990, the third in 1998. This 2004 fourth edition comes at a reflective moment in the author's life, which infuses the writing with deepened insight and personal connection to aging as a process both social and individual. McPherson's twin dedications are revelatory, to his father who passed away in 2002 and to our mutual friend and colleague, Ellen Gee, who passed away suddenly at age 52, also in 2002. The sense of loss and of time passing permeates this edition.

The book is divided into four parts: an introduction to individual and population aging, the social and environmental context of aging, aging and social institutions, and social interventions and public policies for an aging population. Chapters in Part 1 introduce distinctions between individual and population aging, look at aging in historical and cultural perspectives and at individual life courses, as well as comparisons of aging populations. Part 2 has chapters on older people and aging processes, on social structures and the life course, and on community and housing. Chapters in Part 3 include attention to families, work, and social networks, and in Part 4, on social support and public policies as well as health.

The central thesis of the book is that aging as a social process involves multiple and complex interactions between individuals and social structures in an ever-changing social, political, economic and physical environment. The book seeks to offer a synthesis and interpretation of social science research and data on individual and population aging in Canada. It is structured as a text with opening "focal points," lists of questions about each chapter's content to guide the reader, and a concluding section, "for reflection, debate or action." These are useful to the non-student reader as well as to students in engaging the compelling and policy important material considered here.

As this review is being written, aging is very much in the news and under consideration by policy. First, the United States under President George W. Bush's second mandate, is restructuring social security and moving it toward individually managed private accounts. This is calling to the fore questions about whether, or to what degree, population aging is responsible for driving up the costs of social security. In a recent book, evocatively entitled, The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future, Kotlikoff and Burns (2005) sidestep this question entirely and presume the existence of a causal relationship. That population aging is the source of social security's problems is actively contested by Krugman (2005), among many others. Second, the Province of Ontario is on the brink of eliminating mandatory retirement, with the University of Toronto putting in place an agreement to do so, which other universities and employers may have to follow.

The promise of this volume as articulated in the preface — to identify, describe and explain processes, patterns and current issues of individual and population aging — is fulfilled throughout, but perhaps most particularly in the last two chapters. Here, the challenges and intersections of individual and population aging come to full fruition. We see, for example, that aging, although universal, is not isolated or isolating but part of a vibrant social and familial system of support and challenge. We also are treated to a sense of the immense heterogeneity of aging, making it a puzzle to design effective public policies that fit most experiences well. Some people are older at 50 in terms of health care and social needs than others are at 90. Individualization of lives is nowhere more pronounced than with aging. The dilemmas of caregiving when there are so many competing demands on us all, both individually and collectively, are brought out with humanity and with sensitivity to policy-making.

In considering health challenges as...