Introduction

The idea that later life could be represented as a third age of individual engagement and relative autonomy is one that has been contentious among social gerontologists since it started to gain widespread use in the 1990s; see Bury (1995) for a critique and Freedman (1999) for an exhortation. Part of the reason for the controversy lies not in the sentiment for a better later life but in the challenge that the idea of a third age represents for existing social gerontological theories of old age. The orthodoxy that had settled around the ‘structured dependency’ and political economy schools of thought focused around the idea of older people as poorly treated subjects of social policy rather than as agents enacting choices (Estes, 1979; Townsend, 1981). This view of later life was further challenged by the connections that were made, particularly in the US, between relative affluence, consumption, the pursuit of the third age and the search for ‘productive aging’ (Weiss and Bass, 2002). Such an approach appeared to go against many of the assumptions of social gerontology and underplayed the inequalities that exist in later life even if it was no longer possible to claim that these inequalities defined it. Moreover, the fact that the idea of the third age was being discussed at the same time as a profound restructuring of the welfare compact was occurring in both the US and UK meant that articulating such a perspective was seen as reinforcing shifts away from welfare citizenship and towards greater inequality (Estes, 2001). Consequently, the linking of old age, the third age and consumption are not only seen as problematic but also seem to undermine the generational compact between workers and retirees in the face of a changing demography. However, it is not just demography that is changing. As noted in Chapter One, the rise in post-war affluence has altered the relative fortunes of the majority of the retired population. The inequalities that exist within society are no longer structured by age but are reflected within it. As a result, an understanding of the third age and its development as a social space for later life is essential for understanding the role and significance of consumption in later life.

This chapter considers different typologies of the third age and explores the ways in which it is expressed and reproduced in different social contexts.