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The New Realities of Aging: Social and Economic Contexts
Jacqueline L. Angel and Richard A. Settersten, Jr.
This chapter addresses some of the new realities of aging as they are shaped by
contemporary social and economic contexts. Changes in these contexts have dramatically altered
the perceptions, behaviors, and opportunities of older people, which in turn affect the
experiences and meanings of aging for everyone in society. With increasing globalization, aging
populations also need to adapt to life in a diverse and multigenerational world. The primary
objectives of this chapter are to describe these new realities and the processes that give rise to
them; to examine some of their outcomes and implications; and to highlight the importance of
viewing the science of human aging through a sociological lens.
We begin with some of the most significant social issues, examining the new
configuration of the life course by considering the shifting boundaries and markers of different
life periods; the erosion of traditional pathways through education, work, and retirement; and the
future of aging based on what we know about younger cohorts. Next, we highlight the growing
diversity of family and social relationships and the new strengths, vulnerabilities, and
ambiguities they bring, paying close attention to effects on social support, health, and
intergenerational financial exchanges.
The discussion then turns to some of the most pressing economic issues. We highlight the
changing contingencies of retirement for individuals and groups and then examine a larger range
of concerns related to public economies and aging policies and programs. It is here, especially,
that we entertain the roles of various policies and institutions because they are crucial levers for
both responding to these new realities and preparing for the future.
The Shifting Boundaries of Life Periods
The last century saw significant reductions in mortality, morbidity, and fertility (see
Hardy and Skirbekk, this volume). These factors, which created aging societies, have
fundamentally transformed human experience and the landscape of the life course (Settersten and
Trauten, 2009). Old age is a prime example. Longer, healthier lives make it possible for
individuals to become and be "old" in brand new ways. Old age extends multiple decades, but it
is comprised of early and late phases that are often extremely different from one another. This is
reflected in what has been called the "third" and "fourth" ages of life (e.g., Laslett, 1989). The
"third age" can span several decades and is viewed as a time of opportunity and activity. It is a
period during which most mature adults no longer have childcare or work responsibilities but are
in good health and have other resources. Moen (2003) calls this period "mid-course" and
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emphasizes the possibility of developing new identities and ways of being productively engaged,
and of revising existing relationships and beginning new ones. The "fourth age," in contrast, is
defined by the three "Ds": decrepitude, dependence, and death. Individuals can expect major
encounters with chronic illness to be followed quickly by death (the so-called "compression of
morbidity"; see Fries, 2005).
These categories underscore important distinctions among old age groups. Clearly,
experiences related to aging into one's 80s and 90s cannot be oversimplified or glorified, as the
transition from the third to the fourth age is a difficult one. The advantages of the third age can
quickly dissolve as health and resources change. Social gerontologists do a disfavor to older
people when they actively promote images of successful aging that deny or underplay the
hardships that come with growing old. These tensions are also exhibited in media depictions of
old age (Harrington, Bielby, and Bardo, 2011). Longevity brings an important paradox: Humans
now live longer than ever before, and aspire to live even longer, yet this quest must be to also
ensure that the quality of lives is commensurate with the quantity of years.
The Shifting "Boxes" of Education, Work, and Leisure
The last half-century also saw dramatic changes in the allocation of educational, work,
and leisure experiences across the life course. A prime example relates to the three successive
"boxes" of education early in life, work in the middle, and retirement at the end. This three-box
structure traditionally characterized the lives of men, but it also increasingly did so for women as
their educational attainment and labor force participation grew.
The boundaries and content of these three boxes, however, have been shifting and are
even eroding (Settersten and Trauten, 2010). The early part of adult life, for example, has seen
major extensions in education. Entry into full-time work has been delayed because young people
often pursue education and work simultaneously or alternate between spells of school and work.
These changes mean that individuals from recent cohorts are putting off saving for retirement,
potentially reducing their resources in old age. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that gains
in longevity have also extended the retirement period.
In the middle part of life, modernization and rapid technological change have similarly
made it necessary for working adults to return to school or seek training that will allow them to
update their skills and knowledge to remain competitive in new markets. Yet scholarships and
student loan programs are generally awarded only to full-time degree-seeking students,
disqualifying most adults. As a result, expenses for educational activity must often be paid out-
of-pocket, making a return to school unaffordable for many adults, especially if it also means
losing health insurance. These constraints make it difficult for adults to improve their economic
standing in the job market.
The need to remain competitive has especially grown as "lifetime" models of work—in
which employers and employees invest in a long-term partnership, and employee longevity in a
firm means better wages, job security, job mobility, and pensions—have vanished. Stable work
has itself become uncertain, and many jobs no longer come with health insurance or benefits or
with the levels of protection they once did. This is especially reflected in "contingent" models of
work characterized by time-bound contracts with no promise of work beyond those parameters—
or no contracts at all (Barker and Christensen, 1998). Movement toward contingent models of
work has been driven by technological change, foreign competition, concerns about the cost of
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labor, the decline of manufacturing, and the growth of service-sector positions, which offer few
benefits and low wages and are generally not unionized.
The shift toward contingent models of work carries significant implications for social
policies and for the financial security of individuals and families. For example, such a shift
means that health care coverage, pension plans, and Social Security benefit levels may be
jeopardized or significantly lowered. Because careers have become more disjointed, it may also
mean that individuals need unemployment insurance more often and for longer periods of time.
Changes such as these affect the well-being not only of employees, but also of the spouses and
children attached to them as dependents and beneficiaries.
Another consequence of these changes is that many older people are unaware of when
and how to transition into retirement and, specifically, how to gauge the end of their work years.
As people approach the end of their work years, a wider array of routes into retirement is now
more common (see Moen, this volume). The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed a
surprising trend toward early retirement that, when coupled with delays in full-time work at the
front of adult life, meant that the period of gainful work became shorter. Evidence is now
mounting, however, that the trend toward early retirement is reversing and will jump ahead by at
least a few years (Hardy, 2011). This phenomenon is produced partly by incremental changes in
eligibility ages for Social Security and partly by the need for individuals to remain employed
longer in order to support themselves and their family members. Older workers with substantial
defined contribution plans are much more likely to remain in the labor force than those with
defined benefits plans (Pang, Warshawsky, and Weitzer, 2008). For many, the need to remain
employed has also grown as a result of the current economic recession (Van Horn, Corre, and
Heidkamp, 2011).
In the changing world of work, then, men and women may anticipate working for some
time, but if their jobs disappear and they are unable to find another place of employment,
retirement becomes a kind of "default" status—at least until they manage to retrain or relocate.
For others, the unpredictability of retirement income may mean that they think they will not be
able to afford retirement at all. As inequality expands, retirement may also become bimodal: an
"intermittent" period between jobs or when no more work can be found versus a planned interim
period between employment and when health declines impose limits on activities.
Despite these and other changes, the three-box structure is created and reinforced by
policies that regulate education, work, and retirement. When the lives of individuals depart from
this three-box structure, whether by choice or out of necessity, they are penalized for it.
Sociologists have important roles to play in both analyzing the effects of social policies on the
life course and helping policy makers revise outdated policies that were based on an earlier
model of the life course.
Anticipating the Future of Aging
Much knowledge about aging is based on cohorts born in the first few decades of the 20th
century. The last century was punctuated by remarkable events and changes related to war,
economic hardship and prosperity, health epidemics, civil rights reforms, and innovations in
medicine, communication, and transportation. The Great Depression and military service during
World War II, in particular, heavily marked the lives of men and women who are now old (see
Settersten, 2006). These historical events and changes may be "hidden variables" (Spiro,
Schnurr, and Aldwin, 1997) beneath much of the scientific knowledge base in gerontology. In
terms of policies, these cohorts are also unique: Their early lives saw and benefited significantly
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from the conception of the New Deal and its programs in the early 1930s; their military service,
too, brought educational, housing, and other benefits related to the G.I. Bill after World War II;
and they later benefited from the programs of the Great Society of the mid-1960s. These
programs were also aimed at the middle class as they democratized opportunities (higher
education, pensions, and job perquisites in the form of fringe benefits) and generated
comparatively healthy rates of economic growth, which counteracted the economic forces of
wealth inequality.
Current understanding of the sociology of aging is clearly based on the experiences of
this unique cohort (see examples in Settersten and Angel, 2011). However, how this knowledge
will apply to future cohorts whose historical experiences have been very different from those
who are currently old remains unknown. One way to increase this understanding is to become
more intimately acquainted with cohorts who are not yet old. For example, negative public
discourse surrounding the Baby Boom generation has focused on how its size has strained social
institutions or undermined public resources (see also Schulz and Binstock, 2006). But it is
important to remember that the physical, psychological, and social statuses of the Boomers are
rather favorable relative to past cohorts. The recent surge of interest in the civic engagement of
the young-old seems symbolic of the new potentials inherent in the Boomers (O'Neill, Morrow-
Howell, and Wilson, 2011). Important insights for policy making will be found in probing the
implications of Boomers' better positions, on average, in all aspects of aging as well as their
aspirations and expectations for old age (Hughes and Waite, 2007)—though their better statuses
on average are also undermined by the extraordinary variability and inequality among them.
Becoming more closely acquainted with cohorts currently in early adulthood is also
important. Members of these cohorts are experiencing a prolonged transition to adulthood, with
significant delays in leaving home, finishing school, starting work, getting married or partnered,
and having children (e.g., Settersten and Ray, 2010). Their routes into adulthood are more
circuitous and do not match the linear models of life that underlie many contemporary policies
related to education, work, and family, which creates risks. Relative to other cohorts, younger
generations are in some ways better off and in some ways worse off; they have encountered new
vulnerabilities as the service and knowledge sectors of the economy have grown (see Danziger
and Rouse, 2007). Their worldviews on a wide range of social and political issues differ from
previous cohorts (see Smith, 2005). As these young adults grow older, they, like the Boomers,
will further challenge much of what is now taken for granted about aging.
New Types of Relationships
As the life course has been reorganized, so, too, have family and social relationships.
Marriage and families have been "deinstitutionalized" and the social norms that once governed the
expectations and obligations of individuals have weakened (Giddens, 1994; Kohli, 2007). Rapid
social change and modernization have left people with more choices and fewer constraints on their
lives. The dissolution of the "traditional" long-lived nuclear family is but a small part of the larger
picture. The wide variety of family (and family-like) forms and relationships today is driven by
many factors, including multiple divorces and remarriages across generations, multipartner fertility
and nonmarital fertility, nontraditional partnerships, the concurrent survival of multiple generations
over many decades, and the presence of four and even five generations during some periods of
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family life (Treas and Marcum, 2011). The geographic dispersion and mobility of immediate family
members also creates new challenges for families.
Some of these changes are tied to the demographic parameters discussed earlier.
Decreases in mortality have radically altered the "supply" of kin at different points in life and
produced long-term joint survival of family members (Uhlenberg, 1996). In today's demographic
conditions, family relationships have the potential to become more important, active, and intense.
These relationships may become more significant and positive all around because lower fertility
has meant that there are fewer relationships in which to invest, they are of longer duration, and
they exist across many generations.
But the reverse is also possible, as the new demographic climate may instead foster family
ties that are less important, active, and intense. Because the presence of these ties can be counted on
for many decades, individuals may disinvest in family relationships under the assumption that they
are always available and can be activated as needed. In this scenario, family ties become more
vulnerable as time together becomes more sporadic and as families themselves become more
fragmented and risk-laden. Much remains to be learned about the relative nature of nuclear,
multigenerational, and extra-familial ties at different times in life, and about the circumstances under
which relationships beyond parents and children are activated, by whom, and for what purposes.
Of the many relationships in an extended family, grandparents, and especially grandmothers,
are critically important, for they often serve as "safety valves" or "stabilizers" by solving problems
and mediating between family members (Hagestad, 1986; Putney and Bengtson, 2003).
Grandparents, and increasingly grandfathers, are also caretakers—often primary caretakers—for
grandchildren (Bianchi, Hotz, McGarry, and Seltzer, 2008; Casper and Bianchi, 2002). The
significance of grandparents is likely to continue growing amidst marital instability (Uhlenberg,
2005). At the same time, grandparental ties, especially paternal ones, may be more tenuous because
of that instability and geographic dispersion (Bianchi et al., 2008).
Some of the potential gains for relationships that come with longevity may be offset by
divorce, which has remained at high and stable levels since the mid-1970s. Nearly half of all recent
marriages will end in divorce, and first marriages that end in divorce last about eight years (Kreider,
2005). A major transformation in the last century is that divorce rather than death is now the great
disruptor of family relationships. The nature of disruption that comes from divorce and remarriage is
inherently different than death, though both clearly affect the quality and duration of relationships
(Carr and Moorman, 2011). Divorce and remarriage also mean something different for young
couples with underage children and shorter marriages relative to older couples with grown children
and longstanding marriages. Unprecedented complexities result when divorce and remarriage occur
multiple times within particular families or for multiple families in the extended family matrix. New
complexities result from the increased proportion of single-parent households, cohabitating couples,
gay and lesbian couples, and individuals who are intentionally single and childless. There is much to
learn about what these varied relationships mean for aging.
New Ambiguities in Relationships
Given the new diversity of relationships, many are no longer ascribed and must be
continually negotiated. Relationships can become challenging because individuals do not know how
to relate to one another in new life periods. Even relationships between parents and children, among
siblings, and between spouses—which might be expected to be among the clearest or most
meaningful of relationships—can be characterized by considerable ambivalence (Fingerman and
Hay, 2004; Lüscher, 2005; Suitor, Sechrist, Gilligan, and Pillemer, 2011). It is hard to know what it
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means to assume new family statuses and interact with others who are remotely or uncertainly
related to each other, or whom are rarely seen. In addition, ambivalence can be exacerbated by the
fact that meaningful family-like ties may also be socially and politically contested and unrecognized
or even deemed illegitimate in the eyes of the law.
Today, for example, little is known of what it means to be a "grandparent," let alone a
"great-grandparent," especially set against the backdrop of divorces, remarriages, multipartner
fertility, and the like. New life conditions bring opportunities for involvement with
grandchildren or great-grandchildren, but there is much to learn about how people fill these
roles and what expectations they and others have. Grandparents have traditionally participated
in the informal care of grandchildren (Pebley and Rudkin, 1999). Recent years, however, have
seen a sharp increase in grandparents who have primary responsibility for rearing grandchildren.
Although many of these grandparents report that there are benefits associated with this
responsibility, there may still be negative consequences for the physical, social, and
psychological well-being of these caregivers (Bernedo, Fuentes, and Fernandez, 2008; Smith and
Palmieri, 2007). Further, relative to their counterparts who do not have caregiving
responsibilities, grandparent caregivers are more likely to be single, live below the poverty line,
and have health limitations, which make it all the more difficult to manage their caregiving
responsibilities (Kreider and Ellis, 2011). From the vantage point of the child, research has also
not yet begun to address the short- and long-term implications of having been raised by
The new complexities of family configurations also pose new questions about who is
responsible for the care of older people, including growing proportions of people who have never
married or parented, as well as aged parents who live far away from adult children and will
inevitably need other informal sources of support and alternative social safety nets (Baca-Zinn,
Eitzen, and Wells, 2010; Pavalko, 2011). Policies must assume not that families today have
deficits relative to "traditional" forms, but that they have strengths—and that the challenges they
face reflect dramatic social and economic changes of the last half-century (Koontz, 2000).
Decades ago, Neugarten (1979) noted that members of a cohort "fan out" over time as
their unique life experiences accumulate and result in great variability by the time they are old.
Inequality also tends to increase with age as a result of processes related to social stratification
and exclusion and to the accumulation of advantage and disadvantage over the life course
(Dannefer, 2003).
How, then, are late-life experiences different based on health and wealth? Theories of the
cumulative advantage and disadvantage process can identify those aspects of the causes and
consequences of inequality at earlier points in life (e.g., Hamil-Luker and O'Rand, 2007;
O'Rand, 2003). For example, advantages related to wealth may grow more monotonically over
time while advantages related to health seem less straightforward. A large body of research
shows that accumulated wealth through income and assets are major factors that separate those
who are well off in retirement from those who are not (Shea, Miles, and Hayward, 1996). The
functional form of this accumulation may depend on cohort, i.e., how age intersects with
historical (economic) trends. For example, as young adults, individual and family resilience may
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allow those of lower socioeconomic status to recover from health setbacks, but at some point,
lowered resilience increases fragility and may lead to a profound drop in health status. Such
gradual declines with discontinuities, then, reflect a significant degradation in modal health.
On the other hand, the advantages of accumulated health, in contrast, may be linear in
that those with poor health do not survive to old age, or far into old age; but among those who
survive, age eventually becomes a "leveler" of sorts—it brings challenges that cannot be escaped
or compensated for, even among those with plentiful resources (Ferraro, 2011; Herd, 2006;
Lynch, 2003; Willson, Shuey, and Elder, 2007). A life-course and intergenerational perspective,
then, is helpful in examining the consequences of asset accumulation and group social mobility,
topics that will be taken up in greater depth below.
These topics are especially timely because the United States is becoming more ethnically
diverse, and inequality does not exist independent of age, race, and gender (Warner and Brown,
2011). Age-, race-, and gender-based inequalities are reinforced by social policies that fail to
address group-specific vulnerabilities such as labor force disadvantages, blocked educational
opportunities, and unequal access to healthy lifestyles and health care (Angel and Angel, 2006;
Herd, Robert, and House, 2010).
In many respects, aging and old age in the United States are "private troubles" more than
"public issues," to use C. Wright Mills' (1959) famous phrases. That is, beyond the basic
protections provided by old-age policies, they are conditions to be managed using whatever
resources one has or can marshal for his or her own well-being. This is, of course, not only true
of old age but of every period of life, particularly the vast space between childhood and old age,
when few supports are offered (Wolf and Amirkhanyan, 2010). The emphasis on personal
responsibility seems likely to grow as public resources dwindle and are further threatened by
negative economic and political environments (Quadagno, Kail, and Shekha, 2011). It is too soon
to gauge whether poverty will continue to be concentrated among the young and wealth among
the elderly. What is certain, though, is that the growing divide between the "haves" and the
"have-nots" increases tensions about the resource differentials across racial and ethnic groups,
and leaves even more vulnerable the groups who are already disadvantaged in terms of health
and economic security (Whitfield, Angel, Burton, and Hayward, 2006; Willson and Hardy,
Consider the case of the Hispanic population, the fastest growing American minority
group, and by example Mexican Americans (Angel et al., 2012). Despite favorable mortality, the
socioeconomic disadvantages among aging Mexican Americans and late-life immigrants point to
a potentially high dependency burden for their families (Angel et al., 2004). Similarly, for older
African Americans, multiple health vulnerabilities undermine the ability to age independently,
and consequently may increase reliance on adult children and relatives who are ill equipped to
provide adequate instrumental support because of other work and family obligations (Dilworth-
Andersen, Williams, and Gibson, 2002).
The consequences of variability and inequalities across families are perhaps nowhere
more apparent than in the financial exchanges and inheritance across generations. Family
exchanges fuel inequalities in the larger society. Money and assets carry significant implications
for family obligations, expectations, and responsibilities (Angel, 2008). Gifts, bequests, and
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inheritance will take on greater salience for older Americans, especially for women, who fear
that they will outlive their wealth (Dannefer and Shura, 2009). Yet there are scant sociological
analyses on the connection between expectations and reality in living through the retirement
years (Street and Desai, 2011).
In normal family development, the pattern of instrumental aid, defined in terms of help
with daily tasks such as transportation, caregiving, and money management between generations,
is downward from the parent to the child until the child reaches adulthood (Hogan, Eggebeen,
and Clogg, 1993). As the parent reaches later life, the flow of instrumental assistance begins to
move upward from adult child to the parent (Eggebeen and Hogan, 1990). Studies are needed to
examine how changes in the structure, values, ethnic composition, and economic status of
families have affected their exchange of financial resources across generational lines. Changes in
the modern role of kinship should prompt new questions about intergenerational solidarity and
the extent to which the receipt of financial assistance might attenuate notions of filial
responsibility. Here research shows that kin outrank step-kin in the support they receive. Remle
(2011), for example, demonstrates that children in blended families are less likely to receive
financial transfers and when they do, they receive smaller amounts of money than grown
children in nuclear families.
Other questions point to the role of household and family characteristics in determining
resource flows—quality, number of kin, the meaning of kin, and kin relationships.
Intergenerational transfers involving mid- and late-life individuals as givers and receivers are
affected by typical life-cycle problems. The timing of transfers in human capital investments can
dramatically alter the course of an adult child's life (Kohli, 2004). Parents across all social
classes are now providing more support to their adult children, but there are extraordinary
inequities in what young adult children get from their parents across social classes (Settersten
and Ray, 2010). Moreover, the "empty nest" today comes later and remains open or cluttered.
These supports may bring financial, emotional, and other strains for parents at midlife and
beyond. At the same time, it may be that the greater investments that parents now make in their
young adult children may bring greater support when parents are old—if these children feel
stronger obligations to reciprocate support to aged parents, or if aged parents have stronger
expectations that it be provided.
One of the most important issues that must be explored is the extent to which patterns of
inter vivos ("between the living") transfers and bequests from elderly parents and adult children
have been affected by economic crises or changes in inheritance and gift-related policies. The
recession has surely reduced gift-giving as retirement accounts decreased and as adult children
experienced job losses and foreclosures, weakening their ability to provide resources and care.
Furthermore, research is needed to precisely delineate anticipated and actual monetary and
nonmonetary inter vivos transfers to children, siblings, and elderly parents, and to monitor how
these patterns are affected by the new diversity and ambiguity of family relationships.
As a result of demographic trends discussed earlier, "retirement" has taken on new
meanings. The days of a discrete transition from full-time work to full-time retirement are long
past. There is great variability in the transition to retirement, both in terms of the age at which it
occurs and its more gradual nature as a process today (Ekerdt, 2010; Hardy, 2011). The rapidly
changing and economically vulnerable world has made retirement uncertain for many and even
impossible for some. The decision to retire for most individuals is also not an individual decision
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but one that is tied to a spouse and the needs of other family members. This, too, makes
retirement unpredictable.
The definitions of retirement today therefore demand new exploration. Why and under
what conditions do—or can—Americans retire? Will retirement become the privilege of a select
few? How people are thinking about retirement—its possibilities and constraints—must be
understood in the context of their prior work history and their anticipated future goals, including
what retirees expect and need, how long their health will permit them to work, and the like.
Many Americans do have resources for retirement planning, and they expect to enjoy the
"second act" or "encore" phase of their lives because of good medical advice and attention to
healthful aging practices (Hardy, 2011). The emphasis now put on retirement planning early on
in work careers should also lead to greater planning for "old age" (Ekerdt, 2010).
At the same time, fears about paving a pathway to retirement are real for many people,
and they raise vexing problems—especially for women, due to persistently high divorce rates
(Wong and Hardy, 2009). Women who are today in their 50s and 60s, and younger, have come
to know a world in which marital disruption is common. Unlike prior generations, these women
cannot count on marriage as a source of economic security (Shuey and O'Rand, 2004). And yet
their economic security is threatened, especially in the long term, when marriage and parenthood
lead them to opt out of or reduce their labor force participation. If their marriages last less than
10 years, women also lose the ability to draw Social Security benefits through their spouses
(Meyer and Herd, 2007). The complexity of contemporary women's marital histories, in
conjunction with their work histories, will affect their security in later life in ways that must be
better understood for their sake and for the sake of society. Studies are needed to assess the effect
of divorce and employment history on women's risk of downward socioeconomic mobility.
Minority group status compounds the disadvantages faced by women (Montez, Angel,
and Angel, 2009). African American women are less likely to have employment-based coverage
than non-Hispanic white women, but Mexican-origin women are far less likely than any other
group to have retirement coverage from any source. This has important implications for the
economic security of these large groups of women in Baby Boom cohorts who will reach
retirement age in the coming decade.
Gender aside, the serious challenges to retirement for older workers and retirees amid
financial disruption are similarly illustrated in the members of the ethnically diverse U.S.
workforce, whose social statuses and work experiences also leave their retirement vulnerable.
For example, Mexican-origin immigrants who are working in low-wage jobs in the informal
economy or even outside of legal labor markets are uniquely at risk of economic exploitation
(Massey and Squires, 2010). Foreign-born women of Mexican origin often find jobs in the
service sector, such as elder care, that are subject to low pay, few benefits, and labor violations
(Angel, 2007).
Research on the sociology of aging will aid in ascertaining the risks and uncertainties of
retirement planning and decision making for the growing numbers of people in the labor force
who are truly disadvantaged, as well as those in the middle class whose once stable lives have
now been undermined or undone by the current recession. While the "Great Recession" has
affected workers of all ages, older workers (aged 55+) have fared especially poorly (Van Horn,
Corre, and Heidkamp, 2011). These conditions have made it more difficult for individuals to put
aside money for retirement. The difficulties of projecting life expectancy after age 65 only
magnify the challenges of retirement planning (Hardy, 2011). The longer lives known today
require new ways of approaching the "quotidian choices" of individual behavior. As we will
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discuss next, social policies, including retirement policies, must be revised to reflect the realities
of life today.
During the 20th century, the modern welfare state became synonymous with the assurance
of a wide range of individual protections, the most basic of which are retirement security and
access to preventive and curative health care. Internationally, the United States is often
characterized as an outlier, given the absence of universal health care (Quesnel-Vallée, Farrah,
and Jenkins, 2011). Although Medicare, Medicaid, and the new State Children's Health
Insurance Program (SCHIP) provide health care coverage for poor children and the elderly, there
are significant gaps in the health care safety net, especially for those who are no longer children
and not yet old. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 made
coverage less expensive for individuals, families, and self-employed businesses by expanding
Medicaid coverage and subsidizing health care premiums purchased through the Exchanges.
Even so, it is likely that many women, racial minorities, and chronically ill adults will spend a
substantial fraction of their limited incomes to cover health and long-term care costs (Wiener,
Historically institutionalized gender role differences in labor force attachment have
created a system that places some women at a disadvantage, as noted earlier. Current debates
about entitlement reform must be informed by knowledge of the structural barriers to coverage
for minority and older women, including risks related to marriage (Meyer and Herd, 2007). For
many married women a "window of health insurance vulnerability" opens up in late-mid-life
when they may lose coverage as the result of their husbands' retirement and enrollment in the
Medicare program (Angel, Montez, and Angel, 2011). The new health reform legislation
(PPACA), if it is not overturned, will close this "window of vulnerability" by providing access to
affordable coverage for at least some women.
Longer lives and bigger populations come with great costs. The United States faces major
challenges in financing the retirement and health care needs of older people alongside those of
defense, infrastructure, education, and economic growth. Other countries with mature welfare
states, aging populations, and costly welfare programs also share these challenges. The current
period of serious globalized financial crises has led to attempts to decrease the state's role in
social insurance (Palier, 2010; Pierson, 2004).
Policies and laws that regulate retirement plans are one example. Today, employers are
shifting their retirement plans from defined benefit to defined contribution plans (Hardy and
Hazelrigg, 1999). This means that even among those minority workers who participate in an
employer-sponsored plan, their accumulated savings may be insufficient to guarantee an
adequate income in old age. Given inequalities in society, some groups of people are much better
positioned in health and in wealth to manage a prolonged old age. Although Social Security has
reduced the most serious poverty among the elderly, health and economic security require
accumulated wealth and private retirement plans. There is also a highly unequal distribution of
retirement income among Baby Boomers (Wright, 2012).
The shrinking younger population, coupled with later entry of young adults into the full-
time workforce, comes at a time when the strain on pension and long-term care systems is
approaching a crisis level (Wolf and Amirkhanyan, 2010). In most superpower economies, the
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welfare of younger workers is at stake because their work lives are more irregular and the
security offered through their wages and benefits pales in comparison to what cohorts now in
their later years knew. Japan provides a good case example. The country has the largest
percentage of older adults 65 and over worldwide, and is the only major industrial nation with
higher labor force participation rates among older workers than the United States (Higo and
Williamson, 2011). As a result, Japan has had a rapidly growing "contingent work force,"
creating conflict between the young (workers under 35) and older workers. Employers relegate
young workers to so-called irregular or temporary jobs without any job security or benefits to
protect older workers, undermining innovation and the economy. Women are less likely than
men to occupy the full-time positions, explained in part by cultural reasons. In the end, the young
generation of highly educated Japanese workers in low-paying jobs is at high risk of
compromised career mobility.
Population aging in the United States brings serious and long-term financial
consequences for how individuals and employers will fund Social Security and private retirement
plans, including defined contribution plans like 401(k)s. As mentioned earlier, despite the
increase in retirement age to 67, the majority of male American workers in older cohorts have
retired and begun to collect Social Security benefits early in the 21st century. The current global
financial crisis, however, is emblematic of new concerns regarding the concept of "risk" in
decision making regarding assets for members of the middle class. As the size and stability of
pensions fade away, the fate of retirement for people in the early and middle phases of their work
lives must be ascertained. They will find it much more difficult to save for retirement than did
their older peers.
As the so-called "Silver Tsunami" of retirements of Baby Boomers hits this decade, their
numbers will heighten existing public and political concern about the adequacy of Social
Security retirement income and the viability of the Social Security program. This situation is part
of a more general crisis for municipal and state governments, independent of the federal
government, which made retirement fund commitments that far exceed what they could ever
have realistically funded (Estes, 2011). Furthermore, the issue of whether countries with well-
developed pension systems can sustain themselves as their populations age has as yet to be fully
appreciated (Lassila and Valkonen, 2008). As the elderly population continues to age, it will be
important to learn how, and to what extent, governments in continental Europe and the United
States are shifting the burden of old-age supports to the individual (family).
Understanding how Social Security and retirement policies and programs, and changes in
them, affect the ability and choices of older people to pass on wealth to the generations beneath
them merits attention and further investigation. The Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in
Europe (SHARE) and Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data provide a unique opportunity to
compare how transfer behaviors across multiple generations in different western societies work.
Analyses of detailed information on key predictors of intergenerational support by adult children
and older parents—including demographic factors, health, personal income and assets, and
government transfers—can begin to address this question. At the macroeconomic level,
contextualizing how the welfare state (e.g., food stamps, social insurance, cash assistance, family
allowance, tax credits, etc.) operates to influence the propensity to save for retirement deserves
attention. Furthermore, by harmonizing these surveys, research provides much-needed new
information on whether more generous old-age welfare states are associated with lower personal
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Projecting a Legacy of Social Protection
The undeniable facts of aging in the United States will impact the social contract between
generations. A portrait of the workforce and retirement population will look much different than
it did in the past and directly affects who will pay for the oncoming wave of Boomer retirees. In
1945 there were 40 workers for every retired person receiving Social Security. However, as a
result of increasing immigration from Latin America and Asia, the changing age structure, and
the aging of Baby Boomers themselves, by 2030 each retiree will depend on the contributions of
slightly more than two workers. The implications of the higher old-age dependency ratio are
Because of high fertility and immigration, racial and ethnic minority groups constitute an
even larger share of the economically active population. While the working-age population is
becoming increasingly minority, the older retired population is predominantly non-Hispanic and
white. This situation is particularly pronounced in states like Texas, where, by 2040, well over
half of the labor force will be Hispanic. A failure to address the importance of race and ethnicity
will bring strife and only heighten the potential of serious age-based conflicts in the decades
ahead, given that racial and ethnic minority populations are also younger (Morgan, 2003).
Projecting the unintended consequences of rationing and budgeting decisions is essential
to making good social policy. Future generations will be taxed at higher rates to cover the cost of
these programs at the same time that their own retirement income benefit levels will erode
(Quadagno, Kail, and Shekha, 2011). A system in which minority workers are taxed largely to
support nonminority seniors undermines its political legitimacy and survival.
Population aging brings serious questions about the sustainability of Social Security that
deserve closer scrutiny (Lee, 2011). While the magnitude of the change in population size is
inexact, population scientists must forecast how the solvency balance in the U.S. Social Security
Trust Fund will be affected by the whole demographic trajectory, not just the old-age
dependency ratio in a particular year (Lee and Mason, 2011a). The extent to which the future
generation of workers will receive a fair rate of return on their lifetime contributions to the Social
Security system must be examined. How will an increasingly diverse workforce put many aging
Americans at risk? Under what conditions will there be public support for Social Security
reform? The negative ramifications of the current recession on the lives of older Americans are
not yet understood. These years have clearly jeopardized the well-being of many older adults,
especially those in the middle class who, despite having Social Security and retirement savings,
may not have enough to get by.
Researchers must also investigate and understand how the old age welfare state affects
the generational dynamics in different national contexts, especially with respect to what
constitutes a minimum level of human security and what responsibilities should be shouldered by
those who receive it (Lee and Mason, 2011b). In a period of economic retrenchment—in which
attacks on welfare programs are increasing, and in which the need to scale back (or to prevent the
expansion of) income and health care entitlements as well as publicly funded safety net programs
are unavoidable—young workers, among whom racial minorities are overrepresented, face
particular risks (Palier, 2010). The aging of Baby Boomer cohorts will also increase competition
for funding among various recipient groups and the potential for conflict across cohorts. Because
of limited government funding, the needs of impoverished women and children compete with
those of the disabled and the elderly (Preston, 1984; Quadagno et al., 2011). Historically, federal
expenditures for older people have been higher than for the young and, as a result, private
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investments in children are quite significant. One recent estimate is that family transfers account
for over half (57 percent) of total expenditures on children (Issacs, 2009; Mason et al., 2006).
Although children constitute the majority of Medicaid enrollees, the majority of Medicaid
funding is spent on care for the disabled and the elderly. Almost half of federal spending on
long-term care comes from Medicaid (O'Brien, 2005). As the older population grows in size and
average age, the need for home- and community-based long-term services, as well as nursing
care, will increase and a large share of these cohorts will spend-down to Medicaid eligibility
(Wolf and Amirkhanyan, 2010). State and local governments will need to address the mix of
services for the young and the old, how they are managed and delivered, and perhaps most
importantly, the extent to which elder care demands may "crowd out" funding support for
children owing to political and fiscal pressures.
The new health reform law (PPACA) has changed the system of health care financing,
but it is unclear how it will directly affect older Americans. While health reform represents the
only realistic means of covering any substantial share of the uninsured, many uncertainties
remain concerning the specifics of the new program for younger and older Americans. There is
also the real possibility that the new law, or the essential provisions of the new law, will be
repealed. As national health care expenditures grow toward 20 percent of GDP, efforts to control
costs seem inevitable. If Medicaid continues to pay less than other forms of insurance, providers
may not participate unless they are forced to do so. Medicare enrollment growth is anticipated to
be the major force driving public health care spending in the future, and Medicaid expenditures
will be fueled largely by a new prescription drug benefit and the rapid growth of Baby Boomer
cohorts as they move into and through retirement. Any changes in the new law will
disproportionately affect the poor and low-income families, who are also more likely to belong
to racial and ethnic minority groups.
Finally, because the new realities of population aging may play out differently in
different cultural, economic, and policy contexts, comparative policy perspectives deserve
special consideration (Kinsella and He, 2009). Arguably, one of the changing realities of global
aging is that countries can no longer treat aging as a "local" (national) problem, but must
recognize the increasing interdependence among nations. While any given country may choose
to address economic and social challenges with a particular blend of policies, how those policies
play out depends, at least in part, on how other countries configure their approaches. In the end,
this may encourage more uniformity across countries or reinforce the existing divisions between
high- and low-income countries. One of the most poignant examples is the Mexico-U.S. contrast.
These societies are contending with multiple demands for public use of scarce resources, and
they have overlapping, interdependent populations and family networks that transcend their
border. A serious global aging agenda will demand that the economic and social welfare
institutions of countries interact, and that the roles of women, ethnic minorities, and new
immigrants be redefined, to better ensure the social protection of vulnerable populations.
We have addressed some of the new realities of aging as they are shaped by
contemporary social and economic contexts. We summarized some of the most pressing causes
and consequences of change, and identified some of the most pressing issues that must be
addressed in future scholarship and social policy. Given the emphases of the volume, we close
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by highlighting some of the potential theoretical and practical contributions that make sociology
central to the science of human aging.
As this chapter has illustrated, sociology is particularly important in revealing important
social structural factors associated with individual and population aging. Aging is a phenomenon
that is heavily conditioned by social institutions, historical events, policies, the economy, cohort
momentum, social interaction, and intergenerational dynamics. Social change is central to the
sociologist's lens to deal with the inevitable fact that social institutions and practices do not
remain static, which forces us to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions that are based on
outdated theoretical models. An understanding of macro processes, too often ignored in the study
of aging, must be incorporated in new models of individual and population well-being in later
life. A strong focus on the individual factors associated with aging carries the risk of losing sight
of how social structures both affect and are affected by aging. As sociologists we have an
obligation to keep social forces and factors front and center in our inquiry.
While calling for greater attention to structural and macro forces, we reiterate the
importance of individual biography and the influence of past life history on aging at the
individual level. Individual life-course studies have yielded many new insights into the process
of aging. Among these is the recognition that aging is a lifelong process and old age cannot be
understood without accounting for the many decades of life that came before. Aging is a process
that is intimately intertwined with other people, institutions, and structures. It is ironic, then, that
researchers often analyze aging as if it is somehow a purely individual experience. Individuals
may be asked to report on the people close to them, or inventories may be taken of life events
and transitions that necessarily involve other people (e.g., marriages, births, deaths). But seldom
is the friction of human lives in action studied, as intimates attempt to mesh their lives together
and as decisions and goals are co-constructed through iterative and often difficult processes of
negotiation. Most, if not all, of life's most important markers are built on those social
In contemplating the significance of linked lives, it is important to probe how the quantity
and quality of social ties change as individuals move through different periods of life, as they
enter or exit from social settings, and how they are affected by social policies. At a micro level,
the linked or interdependent nature of lives creates unexpected changes and circumstances.
Interdependence may constrain or foreclose opportunities, or drain individuals of important
resources—just as they may open opportunities or provide important resources. Linked lives
must also be understood at a higher level of analysis—across generations in a society, or across
nations in the world.
Sociological research on aging routinely references the high degree of variability among
old people, consciousness about which has also been promoted by popular theories of cumulative
advantage and disadvantage. But the field is in need of comprehensive empirical treatments of
variability and examinations of its social sources and its social consequences. The great focus on
variability also causes a loss of sight into important shared experiences of aging that are equally
important to understand.
The need to keep the social in focus is heightened by reductionist tendencies in science
and the contemporary focus on genomes and genetics. When traveling further out into social
spaces and attempting to take them into account, empirical work becomes more difficult (Angel,
2012). The tendency in disciplines such as psychology, economics, and biology is to dismiss
external forces as being too unwieldy to measure or as being already represented in lower-order
measures. This means that we must, as sociologists, make them visible, which will also require
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advances in our measurement and methods (Hauser and Weir, 2010). It is our responsibility to
lead the way and trace these connections across levels of analysis (see also Shanahan, this
volume). The family is an especially important context on which to focus. As the National
Institute on Aging (2011, p.7) itself has recently noted, "research examining how the family
serves as a context for the expression of genetic influences on health and psychological
wellbeing of relevance to aging is necessary for a more complete picture of aging processes."
A sociological perspective fills in the "black box of the actor" (Mayer, 2003) as well as
the "black box of structure" (Settersten, 2009). That is, sociology can help unearth individuals'
awareness of the social constraints and incentives that affect their actions, but importantly, it
demands more precise accounts of social settings beyond the family and interpersonal
relationships that shape and set parameters on human aging (see also Diewald and Mayer, 2009).
Models of individual cognitive, volitional, or emotional states will have limited explanatory
power if they do not sufficiently account for how larger social settings regulate aging-related
tasks and opportunities.
Aging is one of the most intricate scientific puzzles, posing many significant challenges
for individuals, families, and societies. Sociological research is crucial to unlocking that puzzle
and understanding the properties of social institutions, social organization, and social interaction
in an aging world. As sociologists, we must remember that there are people behind the numbers,
and we have an obligation to understand them both as whole people and in relation to the
multiple social contexts in which they live. In the face of increasingly specialized and fine-
grained empirical work, we should place more value on the tasks of integration, synthesis,
reflection, and theoretical development. These points speak to the need to develop a science of
greater meaning, for the people and phenomena we study are rich and complex.
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York: Springer.
Settersten, R.A., Jr., and Ray, B. (2010). What's going on with young people today? The long
and twisting path to adulthood. The Future of Children, 20(1), 19-41.
Settersten, R.A., Jr., and Trauten, M. (2009). The new terrain of old age: Hallmarks, freedoms,
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Theories of Aging (pp. 455-469). New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Settersten, R.A., Jr., and Trauten. M. (2010). On time and ties: Why the life course matters for
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Shea, D.G., Miles, T., and Hayward, M.D. (1996). The health-wealth connection: Racial
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Shuey, K.M., and O'Rand, A.M. (2004). New risks for workers: Pensions, labor markets, and
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Smith, G.C., and Palmieri, P.A. (2007). Risk of psychological difficulties among children raised
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text:
NOW AVAILABLE AGAIN IN PRINT-ON-DEMAND FORMAT FROM OUP following numerous requests from musicians and academics. The Letters of Claudio Monteverdi edited by Denis Stevens Full information on this important reissue |
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Born: June 26, 1968 in Chicago, IL
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A classy move: Eastern Wayne soccer team shows what 'sportsmen' really means
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Greek orthography
The orthography of the Greek language ultimately has its roots in the adoption of the Greek alphabet in the 9th century BC. Some time prior to that, one early form of Greek, Mycenaean, was written in Linear B, although there was a lapse of several centuries (the Greek Dark Ages) between the time Mycenaean stopped being written and the time when the Greek alphabet came into use.
Early Greek writing in the Greek alphabet was phonemic, and different in each dialect. Since the adoption of the Ionic variant for Attic in 403 BC, however, Greek orthography has been largely conservative and historical.
Given the phonetic development of Greek, especially in the Hellenistic period, certain modern vowel phonemes have multiple orthographic realizations:
- /i/ can be spelled η, ι, υ, ει, οι, or υι (see Iotacism);
- /e/ can be spelled either ε or αι;
- /o/ can be spelled either ο or ω.
This affects not only lexical items but also inflectional affixes, so correct orthography requires mastery of formal grammar, e.g. η καλή /i kaˈli/ 'the good one (fem. sing.)' vs. οι καλοί /i kaˈli/ 'the good ones (masc. pl.)'; καλώ /kaˈlo/ 'I call' vs. καλό /kaˈlo/ 'good (neut. sing.)'.
Similarly, the orthography preserves ancient doubled consonants, though these are now pronounced the same as single consonants, except in Cypriot Greek.
Digraphs and diphthongs[edit]
A digraph is a pair of letters used to write one sound or a combination of sounds that does not correspond to the written letters in sequence. The orthography of Greek includes several digraphs, including various pairs of vowel letters that used to be pronounced as diphthongs but have been shortened to monophthongs in pronunciation. Many of these are characteristic developments of modern Greek, but some were already present in Classical Greek. None of them is regarded as a letter of the alphabet.
During the Byzantine period, it became customary to write the silent iota in digraphs as an iota subscript.
Letters | Transliteration | Pronunciation | ||
Ancient Greek |
Modern Greek |
Classical Ancient Greek |
Modern Greek |
αι, αι | ai | e | [ai̯] | [e̞] |
αι, ᾳ | āi | a | [aːi̯] | [a] |
ει, ει | ei | i | [eː] | [i] |
ηι, ῃ | ēi | [ɛːi̯] | ||
οι, οι | oi | [oi̯] | ||
υι, υι | ui | [yː]* | ||
ωι, ῳ | ōi | o | [ɔːi̯] | [o̞] |
αυ, αυ | au | av, af | [au̯] | [av] before vowel or voiced consonant; [af] otherwise |
αυ, αυ | āu | [aːu̯] | ||
ευ, ευ | eu | ev, ef | [eu̯] | [ev] before vowel or voiced consonant; [ef] otherwise |
ηυ, ηυ | ēu | iv, if | [ɛːu̯] | [iv] before vowel or voiced consonant; [if] otherwise |
ου, ου | ou | u | [uː] earlier [oː] |
[u] |
ωυ, ωυ | ōü | oi | [ɔː.u]** | [oi] |
γγ, γγ | ng | ng, ny, g, y, ngh | [ŋɡ] | [ŋɡ] in formal registers, but often reduced to [ɡ] in informal speech; also pronounced [ŋɣ] in some words (e.g. εγγενής, έγγραφο, συγγραφέας)*** |
γκ, γκ | nk | g, y, ng, ny | [ŋk] | [ɡ] word-initially and in some loanwords; [ŋɡ] otherwise, often reduced to [ɡ] in informal speech*** |
γξ, γξ | nx | nx | [ŋks] | [ŋks] |
γχ, γχ | nch | nch, nkh | [ŋkʰ] | [ŋx]*** |
μπ, μπ | mp | b, mb | [mp] | [b] word-initially and in some loanwords; [mb] otherwise, often reduced to [b] in informal speech |
ντ, ντ | nt | d, nd | [nt] | [d] word-initially and in some loanwords; [nd] otherwise, often reduced to [d] in informal speech |
* The diphthong υι [yi̯] was monophthongized to [yː] in Classical Attic Greek, but survives in some other contemporary dialects and in early Koine.
** The diphthong ωυ [ɔːu̯] was found in Ionic and in certain Hebrew transcriptions in the Greek Bible, but it did not occur in Attic, and was gradually lost in Koine. Where ωυ was atticized, it was often split into two separate syllables [ɔː.y], hence the Latin transcription ōy. Perhaps the clearest example of this is the Biblical Greek name Μωυσῆς [mɔːu̯.sɛ̂ːs] (Moses), which was atticized as Μωϋσῆς [mɔː.y.sɛ̂ːs], then adapted to early Christian Latin as Mōysēs, from where it became Spanish Moisés, French Moïse, etc. The modern Greek form is Μωυσής [mo̞i̯ˈsis], whereas the modern Latin Vulgate form is Mōsēs.
***The velars [ɡ], [k], [ɣ], and [x] are palatalized to [ɟ], [c], [ʝ] and [ç] respectively before the close and mid front vowels [i] and [e̞].
It is discussed among scholars whether the velar nasal [ŋ] (ἄγμα, ágma) should be regarded as an allophone of /n/ or a phoneme in its own right in Greek.
Polytonic spelling uses a variety of diacritics to represent aspects of the pronunciation of ancient Greek. Polytonic, along with lowercase letters, became standard in Byzantine Greek, although the ancient distinctions had disappeared, replaced by a simple stress accent. The orthographies of modern Greek, both katharevousa and dhimotiki, used the polytonic system until 1982, when monotonic spelling was introduced. In some conservative contexts, such as the Church, polytonic spellings are still used.
Monotonic orthography, adopted in 1982, replaces the ancient diacritics with just two: the acute accent (tónos, e.g. ί), used to mark the stressed syllable in polysyllabic words, and the diaeresis (dialytiká, e.g. ϊ), which indicates that the vowel is not part of a digraph.
Ancient Greek was written scripta continua without spacing or interpuncts. Over time, a variety of symbols appeared. A system of dots credited to Aristophanes of Byzantium was developed in the 3rd century BC: a low dot ⟨.⟩ marked an occasion for a short breath after a short phrase, a middot ⟨·⟩ marked an occasion for a longer breath after a longer passage, and a high dot ⟨˙⟩ marked a full stop at the end of a completed thought. Other writers employed two dot punctuation ⟨⁚⟩ to mark the ends of sentences or changing speakers. Less often, arrangements of three ⟨⁝⟩, four ⟨⁞⟩ and ⟨⁘⟩, and five dots ⟨⁙⟩ appeared. Such interline punctuation could be noted or replaced by a variety of paragraphoi, long marks which trailed between lines of text; these might also mark changes of speakers. Blank lines or various coronides marked the ends of sections. (A separate coronis was used to mark contractions; its early forms looked like an apostrophe between the two ellided words.) Over time, the main punctuation came to be a full stop marked by a single dot at varying heights, a partial stop marked by various forms of commas, and the hypodiastole ⟨⸒⟩ and papyrological hyphen ⟨‿⟩ or ⟨ ͜ ⟩. These served to show whether an ambiguous series of letters should be read as (respectively) a single word or as a pair of words.[1]
Following the advent of printing, most Greek punctuation was gradually standardized with French: the hypodiastole was fully unified with the comma, the comma serves as the decimal point (and in this use is called the "hypodiastole"), the full stop serves as the thousands separator, and guillemets and em-length quotation dashes typically serve to indicate direct speech.[3] The principal difference is the Greek question mark ⟨;⟩, which developed a shape so similar to the Latinate semicolon ⟨;⟩ that Unicode decomposes its separate code point identically.[1] The ano teleia middot serves as the Greek semicolon but is so uncommon that it has often been left off of Greek keyboards.[2]
See also[edit]
- Ancient Greek phonology
- Greek alphabet
- Greek braille
- Greek diacritics
- Greek grammar
- Greek language question
- Greek ligatures
- Iota adscript
- Iota subscript
- Katharevousa
- Modern Greek phonology
- Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching
- Romanization of Greek
- ^ a b Nicolas, Nick. "Greek Unicode Issues: Punctuation". 2005. Accessed 7 Oct 2014.
- ^ a b "The Look of Greek". Accessed 8 Oct 2014.
- ^ In informal writing, English-style quotation marks have also become quite common.[2]
External links[edit]
- Greek Unicode Issues by Nick Nicholas
- The Details of Modern Greek Phonetics and Phonology, by Harry Foundalis


text:
The Time-traveller's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
HardbackList price $30.07
Unavailable - AbeBooks may have this title.
Additional formats available
- Format
- Paperback $14.37
- Hardback $18.97
- Publisher: The Bodley Head Ltd
- Format: Hardback | 352 pages
- Dimensions: 154mm x 236mm x 38mm | 739g
- Publication date: 2 October 2008
- Publication City/Country: London
- Sales rank: 138,779
Product description
The past is a foreign country. This is your guidebook. Imagine you could get into a time machine and travel back to the fourteenth century. What would you see? What would you smell? More to the point, where are you going to stay? Should you go to a castle or a monastic guest house? And what are you going to eat? What sort of food are you going to be offered by a peasant or a monk or a lord? This radical new approach turns our entire understanding of history upside down. It shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. It sets out to explain what life was like in the most immediate way, through taking you, the reader, to the middle ages, and showing you everything from the horrors of leprosy and war to the ridiculous excesses of roasted larks and haute couture.Being a guidebook, many questions are answered which do not normally occur in traditional history books. How do you greet people in the street? What should you use for toilet paper? How fast - and how safely - can you travel? Why might a physician want to taste your blood? And how do you test to see if you are going down with the plague? The result is the most astonishing social history book you are ever likely to read: revolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail, and startling for its portrayal of humanity in an age of violence, exuberance and fear.
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Ian Mortimer has BA and PhD degrees in history from Exeter University and an MA in archive studies from University College London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1998, and was awarded the Alexander Prize (2004) by the Royal Historical Society for his work on the social history of medicine. He is the author of three medieval biographies, The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, and The Fears of Henry IV: The Life of England's Self-Made King, published in 2003, 2006 and 2007 respectively by Jonathan Cape. He lives with his wife and three children on the edge of Dartmoor.


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Publisher's Description
+XMPEG is a open source converter built on MPEG-1/MPEG-2/AC-3 high quality decoders. It exports video and audio frames through an Adobe Premiere compatible interface. The basic video editing funtionalities use the best algorythms to preserve the maximum quality (HQ Bicubic 0, 0.75). In addition, it supports with AVIWriter the latest encoding format (H264 and AAC, DivX6.4).
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SEC oil reserves-reporting changes: now for the fun part
The year of the oil price
Colombia predicts a bright upstream future, as oil production rises The recession has not damaged Colombia's petroleum industry, says the country's upstream regulator. Tom Nicholls reports
Back to square one for Pemex's challenging Chicontepec oil project Mexico's ambitious Chicontepec oil project risks turning into a multi-billion dollar boondoggle, but executives and regulators still think the project can be salvaged, reports Robert Olson
Canada's climate-change wait Forget Copenhagen. The climate-change decisions that will affect Canada's oil and gas industries will come from another capital – and it isn't Ottawa, writes Derek Brower
Rough times for US oil refiners If the US oil refining industry is a roller-coaster ride, it is on a dizzying downward plunge as demand drops and prices rise, writes Anne Feltus
Offshore Alaska: the upstream oil industry's next frontier Alaska could hold impressive offshore oil reserves, writes Anne Feltus
China making moves into the US' renewable energy industry The US and China have embarked on unprecedented co-operation in clean-energy technologies, writes Anne Feltus
ExxonMobil plays the long-term game Despite falling profits, ExxonMobil's long-term, global approach to the oil and gas industry ensures the company remains highly valued by large institutional investors, writes NJ Watson
A new reality for the EU gas market Recession, new import infrastructure and a global gas-supply glut have changed the fundamentals of the European natural gas sector, writes Derek Brower
Nigeria's gas conundrum The Nigerian gas sector remains short on investment and direction, but IOCs remain committed to the country and now Russia's Gazprom is securing its position, writes Ian Lewis
Russian companies head east to cement oil and gas ties with China China and Russia have entered a new phase of strategic energy co-operation, re-orientating Russia's Euro-centric oil and gas trade towards the east, writes Isabel Gorst
Offshore operations and maintenance – a growing market Sustaining oil and gas output depends on investment in offshore operation and maintenance, writes Thom Payne of Douglas-Westwood
Independent oil storage: fundamentals help to overcome the fears The worldwide independent oil-storage business emerges from a testing year in better shape than many had forecast, Martin Quinlan writes
Surprising resilience in Singapore's oil-storage market Singapore's independent oil-storage market has not exactly shrugged off the effects of a sharp increase in capacity, at a time of troubled economies worldwide – but its resilience has surprised many, Martin Quinlan writes
ARA: sighs of relief from European oil-storage operators Some sectors of the independent oil-storage business at the big ARA ports have felt the effects of the world's economic troubles, but structural changes have helped to maintain utilisation rates, Martin Quinlan writes
Oil market contango keeps US tank terminals at capacity With the oil market in contango, traders have a strong incentive to put crude and refined products into storage, which is good news for tank-farm operators, writes Anne Feltus
Solar-power subsidies spur growth The growth of the German and Spanish solar industries is tailing off, but other countries are taking up the slack, writes Ian Lewis
Swell builds for wave power Wave power has still to be proved as a viable renewable energy source on a large scale. But its promise is growing, writes Ian Lewis
Oil, money and greed A new book tells the story of the oil industry's boom-bust cycle through the personalities of its main protagonists. It isn't always a flattering portrait, writes Derek Brower
Uganda: Eni pounces on Lake Albert oil
Middle East oil and gas M&A in a downturn
Lower costs and higher oil prices boost integrated majors
BP: Put a price on carbon
The EU gets a new energy commissioner
Russia: Shtokman plans hit the buffers
Rising costs fail to hold back Asia-Pacific LNG export projects
The gas glut reaches Qatar
South Korea: Kogas retains its appetite for LNG imports
Starting gun fired in Mideast race for nuclear power
Czech Republic: European Commission raids CEZ offices
Central Asian electricity grid on the verge of collapse
Spain: Wind power provides a boost for natural gas industry
World oil and gas licensing rounds
Western Europe
Eastern Europe and CIS
North America
Latin America
Middle East
Asia and Australasia
Oil prices soften as demand recovery fails to materialise
Rising Opec oil output lifts global supply
THE obsession among oil analysts with the weekly rotary rig count in the US and what it might mean for marginal supply from North America has let a bigger, longer-term obstacle to price recovery emerge almost unseen.


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This isn't strictly pony-related, but we love helping out the show staff whenever we can, and I think this qualifies! Besides, it's pony-related if you stretch it a bit, which I'm about to do.
Are you interested in owning a piece of pony history, as well as other history stuff that probably came before ponies but that one can only speculate on? Then you might want to take a look at this. Daniel Ingram is selling his custom-designed maple desk on eBay. This is where all the music magic has happened throughout all three seasons of pony, and on top of that it's a beautiful desk if you've got the room for it.
The eBay link is here, and currently the price is quite reasonable. Let's see where it goes!
Daniel Ingram Selling Custom Composing Desk2012-10-13T19:00:00-07:00Cereal VelocityNot-Fanfiction|


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Documents.ShapeParentChanged Event (Visio)
Office 2010
Occurs after shapes are grouped or a group is ungrouped.
If you are using Microsoft Visual Basic or Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), the syntax in this topic describes a common, efficient way to handle events.
If you want to create your own Event objects, use the Add or AddAdvise method. To create an Event object that runs an add-on, use the Add method as it applies to the EventList collection. To create an Event object that receives notification, use the AddAdvise method. To find an event code for the event you want to create, see Event codes.