Alterslast“ und Sozialpolitik

The paper discusses aspects and dimensions of the public debate about the burden of ageing within the context of public social policy. With references to cultural history and cultural anthropology the analysis puts the emphasis on the social grammar of social norms, cultural codes and cognitive patterns relating the pictures of ageing and intergenerational relationships. Central categories are reciprocity and moral economy. The basic result of the analysis is the social fact of a deep ambivalence embedded into the pictures of ageing and the grammar of intergenerational relatedness. There is no evidence to support theories of linear (increasing or decreasing) trends in the social status and social inclusion of the elderly and old age in the long-run-perspective of social history. The discussions are integrated by a philosophical anthropological perspective of the ageing and the life-span cycle

Ambivalence · Context (archaeology · Perspective (graphical · Reciprocity (cultural anthropology · Social science · Sociology · History · Psychology · Social and Demographic Issues in Germany · Social Psychology