Growing old : a societal perspective / Martha Baum, Rainer C. Baum.

Chapter 1: Theoretical perspectives -- Introduction -- The three theoretical perspectives -- The age structure of modern society -- Social theories of old age -- Being old in modern society -- Chapter 2: Economic security in old age -- Introduction -- Economic fate of old age -- Income inequality, age and diachronic solidarity in the United States -- The effect of retirement on income in the United States: abandonment or liberation? -- Caring for the elderly: the United States in cross-national comparative perspective -- The economic position of older Americans summed up -- Chapter 3: The politics of aging -- Introduction --- Political orientations and attitudes -- Political behavior -- Intergenerational conflict or cooperation -- Citizenship and social identity -- Summary -- Chapter 4: Retirement: an emerging social institution -- Introduction -- Old people and work in preindustrial societies -- The rise of retirement -- Retirement in contemporary societies: mandatory of voluntary? -- Reactions to retirement -- Beyond performance: retirement as an emerging social institution -- Chapter 5: Older people in family life -- Introduction -- The concept of family and traditional and modern polar types -- Old people and the family in contemporary industrial societies -- Aging and the family in the United States -- The family and the state -- The family: more than intimacy at a distance -- Chapter 6: On dying: premature social abandonment -- Introduction -- Death in modern society -- Dying -- Being unprepared for death -- The hospital: organizational inadequacy for dying -- Physicians and nurses: lack of psychological training for terminal care -- The consequence: premature social abandonment of the dying -- The hospice: attempts to integrate dying with living -- Chapter 7: On death and bereavement: liberation and abandonment -- Introduction -- The personal experience of death: Liberation -- The nature of grief and its social setting -- The modern funeral: some functions missed, some fulfilled -- Summary -- Chapter 8: Growing old: bonds that break, bonds that hold -- Introduction -- The syndrome of old age: a descriptive synthesis -- Contrasts between the nations: evaluation of the American way of growing old -- The modern fate of growing old.