The New Sociology of Aging

This book introduces the 'new sociology of aging' through the analytical lens of sociological themes and new sociological theories. In traditional gerontology, much emphasis is put on aging as decline and decline as aging. Sociology came late to assessing aging with the introduction of functionalism, Marxist/critical gerontology, and feminist tools of analysis. This book moves sociology on by exploring the sociology of 'risky aging' and the precarity of aging identity through managing private pensions. It examines postmodern sociological thought, which provides the intellectual platform to diagnose why individuals have to manage their own risk affairs in welfare such as pensions and care. The book also introduces the importance of a new social methodology for sociological analysis of aging and family life including care relations. To compound this, the book then draws from the sociological conceptual tools of surveillance and governmentality to examine aging and instances of welfare that epitomises why a new sociology of aging is required in the US, Canada, EU, Africa and Australasia. Hence, it will appeal to advanced undergraduate, postgraduate students and researchers. It is envisaged the book will be provocative in examining the implications of rethinking social relations through an impetus for a new sociology of aging.