¹ In this country Mark Abrams has done more than anyone else to promote this differentiated view of the elderly: see Abrams, M., Beyond Three Score Tears and Ten, First (1978)Google Scholar and Second (1980) Reports on a Survey of the Elderly, Age Concern, Mitcham.

² General Household Survey, Reports, 1971–1978Google Scholar, HMSO, London.

³ Grimley Evans, J., ‘Demographic implications for the planning of services in the United Kingdom’, in Kinnaird, J. et al. (eds), The Provision of Care for the Elderly, Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1981, pp. 8–13.Google Scholar

⁴ Audrey, Hunt, The Elderly at Home, HMSO, London, 1978, pp. 41–57.Google Scholar

⁵ Peter, Townsend, Poverty in the United Kingdom: A Survey of Household Resources and Standards of Living, Penguin, London, 1979, pp. 784–822.Google Scholar

⁶ Abrams, , op. cit. p. 19Google Scholar, and Ethal, Shanas et al. , Old People in Three Industrial Societies, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1968, p. 150.Google Scholar

⁷ Abrams, ibid. p. 21.

⁸ Abrams, ibid., and Savage, R. D. et al. , Personality and Adjustment in the Aged, Academic Press, London, 1977.Google Scholar

⁹ Registrar General (Scotland), Annual Report: Part 2, Population and Vital Statistics, HMSO, Edinburgh, 1978, p. 104.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Hunt, , op. cit. p. 12.Google Scholar

¹¹ Abrams, , op. cit. p. 10.Google Scholar

¹² Hunt, , op. cit. p. 12.Google Scholar

¹³ Townsend, , op. cit. p. 798.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Shanas, , op. cit. p. 148.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Significant sex differentials are evident in all self-reports of health and illness, see General Household Survey. Of course, all these self-reports are subject to cultural influences, including the expectation that men ought to be strong, healthy and stoical. Thus, it has long been supposed that ‘real’ health differences may not be as great as they appear from self-reports. The Duke Longitudinal Study, based on physical examinations/physicians' ratings as well as self-reports, attempted to resolve the issue, but their findings are also rather ambiguous. It appears that there are health optimists and health pessimists and that the former tend to be male and the latter female; however, these tendencies were not statistically significant. See Maddox, G. L. and Douglass, E. B., ‘Self assessment of health’, Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 14 (1973), 87–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ Atchley, R. C. ‘Selected social and psychological differences between men and women in later life’, Journal of Gerontology, 31, 2 (1976), 204–211.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

¹⁷ Ibid. p. 208.

¹⁸ Ibid. p. 208.

¹⁹ Abrams, , op. cit. p. 44.Google Scholar

²⁰ For a useful recent review of this voluminous evidence, see Alan, Walker,‘Towards a political economy of old age’, Ageing and Society, 1, 1 (1981), 73–94.Google Scholar

²¹ General Household Survey, Reports, 1971–1917, HMSO, LondonGoogle Scholar. For a useful summary of sex and class differentials in morbidity, see Inequalities in Health, DHSS, London, 1980, pp. 54–55.

²² Most of the work on self-esteem and self-competence having been done by psychologists rather than sociologists, there has been no interest in social class differences. For example, Savage et al., op. cit., devote a whole section (pp. 109–119) to an examination of the self concept in a sample of the community aged, and while they examine age and sex differences at considerable length, there is no mention of possible social class differences.

²³ For an excellent review of these - and all studies related to morale/life satisfaction -see Larson, R., ‘Thirty years of research on the subjective well-being of older Americans’, Journal of Gerontology, 33, 1 (1978), 109–125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

²⁴ For elaboration of the thesis, see Cohen, A. K. and Hodges, H. M. ‘Characteristics of the lower blue-collar class’, Social Problems, I, 4 (1965), 303–334Google Scholar; Rainwater, L., And the Poor Get Children, Quadrangle, Chicago, 1960Google Scholar; Klein, J., Samples from English Cultures, vol. I, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For criticisms see Rutter, M., and Madge, N., Cycles of Disadvantage, Heinemann, London, 1976Google Scholar; Holman, R. T., Poverty: Explanations of Social Deprivation, Robertson, London, 1978Google Scholar; Townsend, P., op. cit. 1979.Google Scholar

²⁵ Shanas, , op. cit.Google Scholar; Abrams, , op. cit.Google Scholar For the most recent review and assessment of the evidence see Allen, G. A., Sociology of Friendship and Kinship, George Allen & Unwin, London, 1979.Google Scholar

²⁶ There are a number of empirical studies which indicate that high levels of self-esteem and self-competence are important components of effective coping: see Smith, M. B., ‘Explorations in competence’, American Psychologist, 21 (1966), 556–566CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lazarus, R. S., Psychological Stress and the Coping Process, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1966Google Scholar; Tyler, F. B., ‘Individual psychosocial competence’, Educational and Psychological Measurement, 38 (1978), 309–323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ George, L. K., Role Transitions in Later Life, Brooks/Cole, Monterey, Calif, 1980.Google Scholar She writes: ‘Personal resources are the broad range of reserves and aids individuals can draw on in times of need. Since they are mobilised in order to alleviate difficulties, resources are closely related to perceptions of stress. When individuals have sufficient appropriate resources, they aren't likely to view a potentially stressful situation as problematic. In cases of more serious threat, resources can either lessen the impact of a stressful situation or lead to a swifter and smoother adjustment to that situation. Situations for which individuals lack resources are most likely to be perceived and defined as stressful’ (pp. 25–26).

²⁸ As far as British studies of the elderly are concerned we have been unable to find any recent analyses which are comparable in their comprehensiveness with the now classic, three-nation cross-cultural study of old people. The chapter on class differences in family life is particularly good: see Shanas, , op. cit.Google Scholar

²⁹ The social levelling thesis takes two forms. In the first, and most common, early class-based differences diminish under the impact of general proletarianisation of the elderly. The second form emphasises a kind of embourgeoisement - the further removed most elderly are from the world of work the more middle class they become: see Rose, A., ‘Class differences among the elderly: a research project’, Sociology and Social research, 50 (1966), 356–360.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Atchley, R. C.The Social Forces in Later Life, 3rd edition, Wadsworth, Calif., 1980, pp. 268–272.Google Scholar

³¹ There is a massive literature on ageing, period and cohort effects. For a recent set of essays exploring aspects and consequences of these distinctions see Riley, M. W. (ed.), Ageingfrom Birth to Death: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Westview Press, Colorado, 1979.Google Scholar

³² See our paper ‘Lifestyle and ageing’, Ageing and Society, 1, (1981), 329–345, for a discussion of some of these problems.

³³ Rosenberg, M., ‘Psychological selectivity in self esteem formation’. In Gordon, C. and Gergen, K. J. (eds), The Self in Social Interaction, Wiley, New York, 1968.Google Scholar

³⁴ Townsend, P., Poverty in the United Kingdom, op. cit.Google Scholar

³⁵ See Shanas, et al. , op. cit. 1968Google Scholar, ch. 12, and, for a more recent assessment, Townsend, , op. cit. 1979.Google Scholar

³⁶ Abrams, M., op. cit. 1980, pp. 50–55.Google Scholar

³⁷ With the slight exception of the number of children living locally.

³⁸ In our own work in Aberdeen we are currently comparing widows with spinsters over a wide range of medical, social and psychological outcome measures. While widows score rather better than spinsters on some measures, they score much worse on those concerned with social isolation and loneliness.

³⁹ See Blau, Z. ‘Structural constraints on friendship in old age’, American Sociological Review, 26 (1961), 429–439CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Petrowsky, M. ‘Marital status, sex and the social networks of the elderly’. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38 (1976), 749–756.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁰ See Havighurst, R. J., Munnichs, J. M. A., Neugarten, B. and Thomae, H.Adjustment to Retirement: a Cross National Study, Van Gorcum, Assen, 1972.Google Scholar In a comparison between teachers and steelworkers (pp. 53–50) Vern Bengston et al. show that steelworkers suffered the greatest decline in numbers of friends following retirement; teachers were more likely to retain contact with former colleagues.

⁴¹ Without independent clinical assessments we have no means of knowing the extent to which our self-reports of symptoms and chronic conditions reflect ‘real’ illness. For a brief review of the extent of agreement between self-reports and those arrived at by medical examination see Taylor, R. C. ‘Self reports and self estimates of health’. In Kinnaird, J., Brotherston, J. and Williamson, J. (eds), The Provision of Health Care for the Elderly, Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, 1981.Google Scholar

⁴² For definition and review see Taylor, ibid.

⁴³ Social levelling also results from selective mortality. We know that at earlier ages the death rate of social class V is about twice that of social class I. In extreme old age the identification of class differentials is very complex, but we can assume that those from working-class origins continue to have somewhat higher mortality rates than those from middle-class origins. Thus, all samples of the elderly, our own included, are samples of survivors, from which working-class males are disproportionately missing. The longer any study proceeds, the greater the effects of survivorship - including the reduction of class differentials.