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As life unfolds, things tend to accumulate. When older adults undergo health, residential, and marital changes, they will face a reckoning with their lifelong store of possessions—special, ordinary, and forgotten. Such a predicament now confronts tens of millions of Americans as the Baby Boom cohort passes into retirement and beyond. Despite what a thriving industry of clutter manuals tells us, for most older adults, downsizing is no simple task. Drawing on in-depth interviews with recent movers in over a hundred diverse U.S. households, David Ekerdt analyzes the downsizing process and what it says about the meaning and management of possessions. He details how households approach and acco...
Retirement brings with it the promises of leisure and freedom as well as the risks of boredom and isolation. When retirees rid their schedules of anything resembling the kinds of obligations that once had been imposed by work, they will experience a sometimes-uncomfortable absence of structure. In The Experience of Retirement, the distinguished sociologist Robert S. Weiss provides a detailed description of how some people plan their retirement, what life in retirement is like, and what makes for a fulfilling retirement. His engaging book can thus serve as a most useful guide. Weiss shows us both retirement's benefits and its possible costs, both the relief retirees can feel once free of work...
Drawing on in-depth interviews with recent movers in over a hundred diverse U.S. households, David Ekerdt analyzes the downsizing process and what it says about the meaning and management of possessions. He details how households approach and accomplish downsizing, exploring the decision-making process and the effectiveness of different strategies.
The topic of retirement becomes increasingly compelling as the U.S. population ages. It's easy to find books about how to plan financially for those years after careers end, but Breaking the Watch focuses on the many ways of creating a life, not just making a living, as a retired person.This book follows women and men from a rural American community as they approach and experience the first years of retirement. Joel Savishinsky focuses on the efforts people make to find meaning in a stage of life American culture often views in a confused or disdainful way.In conversations and stories, 13 men and 13 women demonstrate a deep commitment to defining their own retirement. They bring to their mat...
Tells the story of American consumer society from the perspective of mass-market manufacturers and retailers. Case studies illuminate the actions of decision-makers in key firms, including the Homer Laughlin China Company, the Kohler Company and Corning Glass works.
Thanks to advances in technology, medicine, Social Security, and Medicare, old age for many Americans is characterized by comfortable retirement, good health, and fulfilling relationships. But there are also millions of people over 65 who struggle with poverty, chronic illness, unsafe housing, social isolation, and mistreatment by their caretakers. What accounts for these disparities among older adults? Sociologist Deborah Carr’s Golden Years? draws insights from multiple disciplines to illuminate the complex ways that socioeconomic status, race, and gender shape the nearly every aspect of older adults’ lives. By focusing on an often-invisible group of vulnerable elders, Golden Years? re...
In an era when people live longer and want (or need) to work past the traditional retirement age, the Vita Needle Company of Needham, Massachusetts, provides inspiration and important lessons about the value of older workers. Vita Needle is a family-owned factory that was founded in 1932 and makes needles, stainless steel tubing and pipes, and custom fabricated parts. As part of its unusual business model, the company seeks out older workers; the median age of the employees is seventy-four. In Retirement on the Line, Caitrin Lynch explores what this unusual company's commitment to an elderly workforce means for the employer, the workers, the community, and society more generally. Benefiting ...
Significant demographic changes are altering the structure of the American population. Larger numbers of immigrants are entering the work force, will become part of our aging population, and increasingly, are providing care for the elderly. Family structures and communities are evolving as marriage, childbearing, divorce, and cohabitation trends are changing. The working population that supports the elderly, physically and economically, is also changing and will most likely become smaller and less able to support this growing population. What does this mean for the well-being of our aging population and our efforts to ensure the quality of life for our elderly now and that we will want to en...
Focusing on the broad but practical notions of how to care for the patient, The Encyclopedia of Elder Care, a state-of-the-art resource features nearly 300 articles, written by experts in the field. Multidisciplinary by nature, all aspects of clinical care of the elderly are addressed. Coverage includes acute and chronic disease, home care including family-based care provisions, nursing home care, rehabilitation, health promotion, disease prevention, education, case management, social services, assisted living, advance directives, palliative care, and much more! Each article concludes with specialty web site listings to help direct the reader to further resources. Features new to this second...
Millions of baby boomers are just beginning to retire, and in doing so many are likely to run into adjustment problems, such as loss of identity, deterioration of marriage and social life, and feelings of disconnectedness to the world. Studies have found that as many as 40% of retirees have difficulty adjusting, and even those who claim to enjoy retirement may experience some uneasiness as they adapt to a life lacking in structure and direction. This book investigates the struggles faced by retirees in building a new life outside of the workforce. It provides an honest assessment of retirement, based on the not-always-acknowledged fact that it is a difficult transition with pitfalls and obst...