The Well-Being of the Elderly in Asia: A Four-Country Comparative Study

4. Theoretical Perspectives, Measurement Issues, and Related Research

Chapter 4 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES, MEASUREMENT ISSUES, AND RELATED RESEARCH Albert1. Hermalin This chapter establishes the groundwork for the analytic chapters that follow by developing the theoretical framework that guides these analyses, addressing several key measurement issues, and briefly reviewing relevant prior research. Given the breadth of subject matters associated with the study of aging and the number of disciplines involved, the fIrst two sections identify the disciplinary stance-the demography of aging-that guides this volume and its relationship to other disciplines that also are actively involved with this topic. The Demography ofAging The study of aging, or gerontology, is a diffuse enterprise, with theoretical, substantive, and methodological contributions from many disciplines. It is a rapidly expanding fIeld in many parts of the world, but also one with long antecedents. The multi-disciplinary breadth is not surprising. From one perspective, the field focuses on an age-defIned segment of the human 101 102 The Well-Being of the Elderly in Asia population with all the related behavioral and social science issues associated with human action and organization. These are treated with differential emphases by researchers from anthropology, economics, history, political science, and sociology. From another perspective, the study of aging is concerned with the basic processes of aging and the special conditions that occur toward the end oflife, which highlight the involvement ofthe biological sciences, medicine, public health, social work, and epidemiology. An important recent development touched on below is the increasing amount of research conducted across the disciplines in each broad grouping. The growing interest in aging within most of these disciplines arises from recent demographic trends in the developed and much of the developing world, described in Chapters 1 and 2. According to United Nations projections , every region ofthe world will experience an increasing older population age structure over the next 50 years, and in the less-developed regions the increases will be particularly rapid in contrast to past trends (United Nations, 2001). At the same time, attention to aging and older age as a distinct stage of life can be found in very early writings, and even the perception ofold age as a "problem" in Western civilization appeared in early 20th century literatures (ifnot before), according to Achenbaum (1996). He notes that the term "geriatrics" was coined in 1914 and the term "gerontology," meaning the scientific study of aspects ofgrowing older, in 1908. We position our work within the demography of aging, an emerging field that is itself eclectic-distinguished both by the traditions, theory, and methods of demography and by the set ofproblems it has addressed and the methods and data it shares with other social sciences. The field is more defined by the demographic training of its practitioners and the perspectives that flow from that orientation than by any special problems, theories, or techniques. Indeed, in their introduction to the influential National Academy of Science volume, Demography ofAging, Martin and Preston (1994) describe the field as "a rather capacious umbrella for a variety of studies addressed to the causes and consequences of population aging," before attempting to identify several distinguishing features (p. 3). Part of the vagueness concerning the definition and range of the demography of aging stems from ambiguity in the parent field ofdemography, or population studies. In a classic formulation by Hauser and Duncan (1959), the following definition was offered: Demography is the study ofthe size, territorial distribution, and composition ofpopulation, changes therein, and the components of such changes, which may be identified as natality, mortality, territorial movement (migration), and social mobility (change of status). (p. 2) Theoretical Perspectives, Measurement Issues 103 As the authors note, this definition casts a wide net for demographic endeavors when one reflects that "composition" can go beyond measuring variation in such basic characteristics as age, gender, or marital status to include many other qualities such as education, occupation, and health status; and that changes in composition arise from individuals moving from one status to another as well as through natality, mortality, and migration. This inherent breadth of the field brings demographers into contact with many other disciplines that address some of the same statuses and changes, leading to interdisciplinary exchanges of measures, methods, and frameworks. The authors' distinction between "demographic analysis" and "population studies" helps further identify where the interdisciplinary exchanges are most likely to occur. They define "demographic analysis" as the study of the components of population variation and change, and reserve the term...