Consumption and identity in later life: Toward a cultural gerontology

Journal/Book: Ageing Soc. 1996; 16: 40 West 20TH Street, New York, NY 10011-4211. Cambridge Univ Press. 489-498.

Abstract: This paper considers the role of contemporary consumer culture in helping older people re-fashion their own identity in later life. As a result of the expanding role played by consumption in modern mass societies, adult identities now are being defined as much by how people spend their time and money as by the goods and services they can produce. An increasing number of retired people are able to participate in this consumer culture, and in doing so are creating new possibilities of being 'old'. The contemporary period, whether deemed 'late' or 'post' modernity, seems to present a growing challenge to the dominance of structures of age, class and gender in defining the nature of our personal identity. There is more emphasis upon the exercise of choice and agency across all periods of the lifespan. The means by which this process is enacted in the lives of pre- and post-retired people should become central to a new, culturally focused social gerontology.

Note: Article C Gilleard, St George Hosp, Sch Med, Dept Geriatr Med, London SW17 0RE, England

Keyword(s): consumer culture; personal identity; old age; ECONOMIC-STATUS; AGE; ADULTS

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