Search

Since the appearance in the mid-1970s of Riegel’s dialectical theory of human development, there has been a convergence between psychological theories of human development and sociological theories of

The focus of this paper is the intersection of age and class, and the conceptual problems that emerge when thinking simultaneously of age and class relations. Previous efforts to frame age relations within the context of class stratification have been incomplete due to a failure to grasp the underlying continuity in the inequality produced by age and class location. Inequality is common to both age and class stratification as both age strata and social classes differ in their possession of valued resources and access to the means of acquiring these resources. Old people, for example, are disadvantaged in intergenerational relations because of their exclusion from labor markets. Aging brings with it a decline in other power resources, thus further eroding the probability that cross-age social interaction will benefit each partner equally.