Cuadernos del CIDS. Envejecimiento y longevidad

This text aims to be a synthetic reference, without any aspiration for exhaustiveness, to understand old age, aging and longevity as a social, complex and contextual construction, as well as to differentiate the individual experience of aging from its approach as a collective phenomenon.

The great variety of interpretations assigned to this stage of life is illustrated and, above all, the impact of the visions that underpin policies, programs and social practices in the environment of older people is questioned. The meanings of age are reviewed; the institutionalization of the life trajectory around work; the polarized positions towards old age between fatality and future; old age as an object of social gerontology; the invention of the categories "third age", "active aging" and "positive aging", and some studies on longevity. The risks of the medicalization of old age and the use of notions of vulnerability, fragility, dependence and resilience are warned. The links with the partner, family, caregivers and social network are analyzed.

 It is considered that despite biological and sociocultural conditioning there is a margin of individual autonomy to assume old age, which is why it is illusory to absolutely predict the aging process and, even more so, to standardize it. On the contrary, various ways of aging are recognized, as witnessed by the biographical narratives resulting from the research.