Perspectives on Productive Aging

Social Work with the New Aged

The premise of Perspectives on Productive Aging is based a response to the argument that the professional literature in the field of aging and gerontological social work is exceedingly biased. Gerontological practice emphasizes the problems, crises, and losses experienced by individuals as they age. At the same time, discussions of social work intervention with older adults center inevitably around strategies for dealing with those problems, crises, and losses. We have been inundated with research reports that detail the physical and mental decline associated with aging. We have available practice texts that address social work and other professional interventions with Alzheimer’s victims, the abused elderly, incapacitated elders in need of caregiving support, the institutionalized and homebound aged, and other subgroups of older adults in similar states of incapacity, vulnerability, and decline. Lost in the shuffle are an arraythe creative and important functions and roles that social workers could more frequently assume as they serve the expanding cohort of the “new aged”—older adults who are more mobile, active, healthy, economically secure, educated, and politically sophisticated than older persons in any previous generation.

Bias toward the aging has led to a scarcity of material that probes positive, successful, independent, and productive aging experiences in the context of the family, the workplace, volunteering, social and recreational performance, personal growth, and social and political activism. This widespread and unfortunate vacancy in gerontological social work exists at the research, policy, program development, and clinical practice levels.

This volume aims to fill the gap in the literature by providing readers with a different frame of reference for examining the aging experience and by providing exploring a new, expanded set of professional functions social workers must acquire now and in the future. This book highlights the assets, resources, capacities, and skills of older adults rather than their problems, deficiencies, and needs. The arrival of the new millennium is an appropriate time to promote such an expansion in our professional perspective toward the aging experience and the roles and functions that social workers can legitimately assume in their work with older adults.

Considering the significant numbers of gerontological social workers and allied health professionals in public, nonprofit, and proprietary agencies and organizations serving older adults and their families, this book should have a broad readership. Geriatric care managers, retirement planners, senior center personnel, community and group work specialists, leisure time and recreational workers, and aging services planners and administrators will all find the content relevant to as they plan, design, and deliver services to older adults. Students preparing for careers in gerontological counseling and administration, care management, and adult recreational and leisure services are also appropriate audiences for this book.

The Responsibility of Contributors

Contributors to this volume were asked to review the scope and breadth of productive practices, behaviors, and contributions by older adults in various domains of daily life. They were also encouraged to draw on one or more theoretical perspectives to help them describe, explain, and predict the nature of older adult engagement in a particular life domain. Finally, contributors to the volume were expected to discuss a combination of macro, mezzo, and micro social work practice roles and methods to reinforce meaningful participation by older adults in a particular domain. In discussing social work practice functions, contributors have highlighted examples of innovative programs and model demonstrations that emphasize the promotion of productivity among older adults.

Readers will note that authors have used conceptual frameworks that recognize and enhance the personal resources, capacities, and abilities older adults can bring to bear toin meeting the challenges of active engagement in particular domains of functional and instrumental performance. They have also considered the impact of such variables as culture, race, ethnicity, health, gender, age, and economic well-being on productive lifestyles.

The Book’s Content

The content of this book is divided into two main sections. In the first section, entitled “Setting the Stage”, the reader is presented with conceptual, demographic, and theoretical perspectives of productive aging. In chapter 1, Lenard W. Kaye considers alternative definitions of “productive aging” and offers an alternative paradigm for framing social work practice with older adults. Social work’s role in promoting productive aging is considered here as well. In chapter 2, Charles F. Longino, Jr., and Don E. Bradley develop a detailed demographic profile of the “new aged” fully documented by the literature. Chapter 3 by Nancy R. Hooyman presents a series of analytical perspectives for conceptualizing productive aging and interpreting it in different life contexts. Variables that can be expected to influence conceptualizations of productive aging, including culture, race, ethnicity, health, economic security, gender, and, of course, age, are considered in the discussion.

In the second section, entitled “Dimensions of Productive Aging”, the productive aging experience in various domains of daily living is explored, including the roles and responsibilities of social workers engaged in work with these individuals. Dimensions considered include the workplace (chapter 4 –by Michàl E. Mor-Barak and Steve Wilson); volunteerism and service (chapter 5 by Nancy Morrow-Howell, Melinda Carden, and Michael Sherraden); family life (chapter 6 by Roberta R. Greene); personal growth (chapter 7 by Helen Q. Kivnick); spiritual and religious life (chapter 8 by James W. Ellor); education and lifelong learning (chapter 9 by E. Michael Brady); activism (chapter 10 by Sandra S. Butler); and physical activity, exercise, and recreation (chapter 11 by Melonie D. Grossman). In chapter 12, T. Franklin Willams and Carter Catlett Williams present a unique and compelling personal and professional perspective on the productive aging experience from the vantage point of two highly respected professionals, husband and wife, and pioneers in social work and medicine.

This volume includes a specially prepared appendix by Jennifer Campbell and Fontaine H. Fulghum that provides practitioners with special resources to facilitate productive aging, including listings of special programs and demonstration projects, directories of special interest professional and disciplinary associations and membership groups that emphasize productivity in later life, and professional and scholarly journals that focus on aspects of productivity in old age.