PAUL HIGGS, Ph.D. (Kent), Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. Professor of the Sociology of Ageing, Faculty of Brain Sciences, University College London. He has published 14 books (seven with Chris Gilleard), including: 'Cultures of ageing: Self, citizen and society' (Longman, 2000); 'Contexts of ageing: Class, cohort and community' (Polity, 2005);'Rethinking old age: Theorising the fourth age‘ (Palgrave, 2015);.and Social divisions and later life: Difference, diversity and inequality (Policy, 2020). A new book, Later Life: Rethinking the Sociology of Ageing (Edward Elgar), and also authored with Chris Gilleard, will be published in 2025. Professor Higgs is an editor of the journal Social Theory and Health
Abstract:
This presentation originates in work undertaken with Chris Gilleard on the transformation of old age into later life. Conventional accounts of old age are located within social policy. Old age is seen as an inequality defined by absence from paid employment. For many decades this understanding of later life has remained true, but in current times this unitary approach has become unsustainable given the relative affluence of significant sections of the older population. Social divisions in later life were not only apparent given the distribution of various forms of assets and the transformation of retirement as lifestyle. In this re-configuration, inequalities in retirement are more diverse, and often suggest that the older population are beneficiaries of structural unfairness. This is a hotly debated topic, but the declining significance of old age as a structuring category transforms the debate about inequalities and makes the term social divisions more appropriate.