Changing Contract across Generations

Vern L. Bengtson is AARP/University Professor of Gerontology and Sociology at the University of Southern California, and Past President of the Gerontological Society of America. His publications include The Social Psychology of Aging; Youth, Generations, and Social Change; Grandparenthood; The Measurement of Intergenerational Relations; Emergent Theories of Aging, and The Course of Later Life. W. Andrew Achenbaum is professor of history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and is Deputy Director of its Institute of Gerontology. His research focuses on the history of the elderly in the United States. He currently is completing a book on the history of gerontology. Among his numerous publications are Images of Old Age in America; :1790 to the Present and Social Security: Visions and Revisions.

• Preface Foreword PART I Conceptual and Contextual Issues in the Current Generational Debate 1 Is the Contract Across Generations Changing? Effects of Population Aging on Obligations and Expectations Across Age Groups 2 Generational Relations in Historical Context PART II Social Contexts of the Generational Contract 3 An Historical Perspective on Support for Schooling by Different Age Cohorts 4 Economic Status of the Young and Old in the Working-Age Population, 1964 and 1987 5 Of Deeds and Contracts: Filial Piety Perceived in Contemporary Shanghai PART III Age Cohorts in Conflict? 6 When the Contract Fails: Care for the Elderly in Nonindustrial Cultures 7 Conflict over Intergenerational Equity: Rhetoric and Reality in a Comparative Context 8 Intergenerational Relations and Welfare Restructuring: The Social Construction of an Intergenerational Problem PART IV Family Issues Across Generations 9 Connections: Kin and Cohort 10 Intergenerational Relations: Gender, Norms, and Behavior PART V The Politics and Polity of Age Groups and Generations 11 A Lifetime of Privilege? Aging and Generations at Century's End 12 Interest Group Politics: Generational Changes in the Politics of Aging 13 Setting the Agenda for Research on Cohorts and Generations: Theoretical, Political, and Policy Implications