Third and Fourth Ages second age of employment (and family

responsibilities) and a fourth age of infirmity.

CHRIS GILLEARD and PAUL HIGGS For Laslett, the third age was a set of collec-
University College London, UK
tive circumstances as well as a personal
position (1989, 77), a stage of life free of
INTRODUCTION responsibilities which offered manifold oppor-
tunities for personal fulfillment. However,
Popularized by the Cambridge historian Peter Laslett was reluctant to see the third age
Laslett, in his book A Fresh Map of Life (1989), “bounded by birthday ages,” insisting that
the division of later life into a third and a fourth “the decision as to who is and who is not in
age has become established terminology in the Third Age is (not) a straightforward mat-
contemporary gerontology. As well as echoing ter” (1994, 443). The fourth age, by contrast,
long-standing attempts to order the life course was “even more idiosyncratic … because it
into distinct stages and ages, Laslett’s work does not necessarily occur in every individ-
highlighted one of the major sources of fracture ual, it can come at any point in the life
in contemporary understandings of old age: the course and can be very variable in length”
distinction between a fit, healthy, and produc- (1994, 444).
tive later life and an old age that is dogged by At the heart of Laslett’s work on the third
ill-health, incapacity, and neediness. Thus age therefore lies a paradox, a conflict
framed, the ages and stages model has relied between structure and agency. On the one
heavily upon both chronological age and ill- hand he defines the third age as a point per-
health as the principal parameters determining sonally chosen in the individual’s life: a self-
third and fourth age identities. Individuals are selected time to achieve personal fulfillment;
allocated to one or other of these statuses, with a period of personal cultivation (1989, 146);
those most aged, ill, and disabled being placed and above all a matter of choice (1989, 152).
in the fourth age, and those still “young enough” At the same time he defines it primarily in
to demonstrate “tremendous reserve capacity, structural terms: the attribute of a society or
plasticity or latent potential” (Baltes 1998, 412) nation which has achieved a particular pat-
being assigned to the third age. This entry aims tern of economic and demographic develop-
to provide an overview of the principal ways in ment. In short, within his theory of a third
which this distinction has been employed in age there is an inextricable interweaving of
gerontology as well as some of the criticisms themes concerning personal agency and
that have been made of this division of later life. social and national development. Though he
seeks to give it a substantive reality within
structural and historical terms, he still seeks
LASLETT’S IDEA OF THE THIRD AGE to privilege it as a moment personally chosen
and freed from any constraints of time, place,
As noted, Peter Laslett proposed the idea of or personal history. He writes: “our situation
a third age as a new and distinct stage in is inescapably, irremediably new. It calls for
the life course, one that was distinct from a creation rather than imitation” (1989, 139).

The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society, First Edition.
Edited by William C. Cockerham, Robert Dingwall, and Stella R. Quah.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
2

In these circumstances retired people must periodized the fourth age within the lifespan
look to themselves to identify the means of of individuals. The fourth age was not there-
achieving a good later life rather than look to a fore a matter of collective achievement made
history of sustaining families or enabling states. possible by social, cultural, and economic
History, Laslett claims, has led us to a point development but an inevitable end that
where a new stage of life, the third age, can be should at best be marginalized to the edges of
introduced into the human life cycle. life. In effect, Laslett renders the fourth age an
Significantly there are few markers and little identity into which all that is bad about aging
collective wisdom from which to fashion this can be swept. This marginalization of the
period of life other than the affirmation of fourth age has led others to accuse him of
personal choice. In the absence of historical building up the third age by “treading down
structure, he argues, this new epoch or stage even older and more defenceless people,” a
must be filled by the deliberate actions of criticism that he acknowledged, though with-
those in the third age as they act individually out necessarily accepting (1994, 445).
and collectively to define and express it. Not long after the publication of Laslett’s
Reflexive agency becomes paramount in book, the third age became a topic of national
order to give shape to this emergent set of inquiry in the United Kingdom. Between
circumstances. In the past the majority of 1992 and 1993 a series of reports were pub-
people did not plan for their retirement out- lished by the Carnegie UK Trust, each focus-
side of its financial and terminal aspects ing upon different aspects of the third
because they rarely perceived it as a period of age – income, earnings, education, leisure,
leisure which they needed to plan. Laslett home, travel, and so on. Each report reinforced
believed that in the circumstances of the third the use of chronological age as its defining
age, people needed to be encouraged, cajoled, feature, with the age range 50 to 74 years being
and exhorted to become more self-aware of the boundaries of the third age, thereby
this need for agency. There never were, he implicitly consigning those aged 75 and over
claimed, nor will there ever be, structures so to the category of being “fourth-agers” (1994,
supportive of older people that they constitute 442). While Laslett protested about reducing
the means to ensure fulfillment and the good his new stage of life to a matter of mere
life for a retired person. Family ties were never chronology, others have made the use of
so binding or so desirable to older people as chronological age the central issue in defining
we imagine they once were and the state was (and theorizing) the nature of the third and
never more or less generous than it is now. the fourth age. Foremost among these have
Much of Laslett’s book A Fresh Map of Life been the Baltes (Paul and Margret), who have
concentrates upon promoting the third age. emphasized the importance of chronological
He sought particularly to distinguish it age as the principal if not the only determinant
(“rescue” was how he termed it) from the of these late life identities. In doing so, they
“ignominy” of the fourth (1989, 3–5). For have also have done much more to reformulate
Laslett, the fourth age merited little discussion the idea of the fourth age.
beyond its role in delineating what the third
age is not. It was simply a period of individual
decline and decrepitude that particularly THE BALTES AND THE FOURTH AGE
affected those who lived beyond their
mid-80s (1989, 41). While Laslett located the For Paul and Margret Baltes, “the third versus
third age within the history of society, he fourth age script is primarily an elaboration
 3

of the ‘young old’ versus ‘old old’ distinction there was simply less and less that could
that was introduced by Bernice Neugarten” be done to bring about “successful aging”;
in her seminal 1974 paper on “the rise of the what was needed, they argued, was a policy
young-old” (Baltes and Smith 2003, 124). In recognition that “healthy and successful
their writings, they defined the third age or aging has its age limits” and that “the chances
“young old” as those aged between 60 and 70 for human dignity may actually be reduced
years (Baltes 1998, 411) with the “watershed” in the fourth age if social policy is predomi-
transition into the fourth age taking place nantly directed toward promoting longer
after age 70 or 75. This division was then lives beyond the third age” (2003, 133, empha-
used to draw certain conclusions about the sis added).
existence of qualitative differences between
“early” and “late” aging. Using data from the
Berlin Aging Study, they claimed that after GILLEARD AND HIGGS: THE
this transitional period the resilience of CULTURAL TURN
later life breaks down and “the positivity of
the news about human aging begins to An alternative perspective to the third-age/
crumble” (Baltes and Smith 2003, 128). fourth-age distinction has been outlined by
While acknowledging some contingencies of Gilleard and Higgs (2005; 2007; 2010). They
place and period in determining exactly argue that this distinction can be viewed
when this watershed is passed, they argued through a less individualized lens that focuses
that the age is nevertheless fixed at a popula- more upon the particular networks of social,
tion level “being the chronological age at material, and cultural resources that support
which 50% of the birth cohort are no longer and sustain the “normative differences” of
alive” (2003, 125). Under these assumptions, later life and less upon individual “life stage”
increasing life expectancy within cohorts identifiers or “chronological age markers”
would seem to raise the age at which indi- as “third” or “fourth” age identities. Drawing
viduals reach the fourth age, rendering upon Bourdieu’s terminology, they argue that
somewhat suspect any essentialized biologi- the third age is primarily a cultural field, with
cal-genetic explanation. Nevertheless, what varying levels of participation by individuals
they were more concerned to argue was not in later life (who may be loosely characterized
the chronological barrier per se that as the over 50s). In contrast the fourth age is
separated the third from the fourth age, but characterized as “a social imaginary,” using
the qualitative shift in the nature of aging this term in the sense outlined by Charles
that emerged after the passing of the bound- Taylor (1994; 2004), to represent a set of
ary. No longer, they suggested, was there the assumptions, fears, images, and ideas about
plasticity, potential, and variability that could the world and its peoples that exist in a
be discerned earlier in later life, that is, in society’s collective consciousness.
the third age. Instead, they argued, upon In the case of the third age, they share with
reaching the fourth age increasing uniformity Laslett a belief in its “novelty,” but see it
of aging was evident, characterized by arising not so much as “a new stage of life” but
unilinear decline and an ever-reducing more as a distinctive cultural field oriented
capacity for such decline to be controlled by toward those in or moving toward later life.
any of the sociocultural resources that could This field is “bounded” on the one side by the
enrich the third age. For them, the fourth age secular progression into later life of a particu-
represented that point in the life cycle when lar consumer-oriented post-World War II
4

generation, and on the other by the Taylor’s (2004) terminology, they describe
intensification and elaboration of the “social the fourth age as an example of a “social
imaginary” of a deep old age, a fourth age, imaginary” through which modern society’s
with its imagery of decline and decrepitude. unstructured and inarticulate sense of the
The fourth age, they argue, is widely feared world is given meaning. The fourth age func-
and seen as risking the dissolution of the tions as a social imaginary because it repre-
diversity that makes up the cultures of the sents not so much the circumstances of
third age into a single, undifferentiated com- people from a particular cohort or at a cer-
munity of deep old age. tain stage of life but a kind of terminal desti-
The logic that operates within the cultural nation, a location stripped of the social and
field of the third age, these authors argue, cultural capital which allows for the articula-
derives from consumption and the widening tion of choice, autonomy, self-expression,
access to consumer products that took place and pleasure in later life. They liken it to a
during the latter half of the twentieth century. cosmological “black hole,” whose location in
The rise of postwar youth culture, the social space is determined by such factors as
widespread rejection of what was “old” in the progressive densification of death within
favor of what was “new,” and the growth and the life cycle, institutional responses to per-
diversification of youth subcultures and their ceptions of frailty in later life, and subjective
associated counterculture helped solidify a reactions to the abjection embodied by the
persisting generational schism. It is this loss of agency and the preservation of human
schism that has been so strongly embodied in dignity (Gilleard and Higgs 2010).
the lives of a distinct generation and which has
provided the foundations for the emergence
of the third age. The aging of this iconic SUCCESSFUL AGING AND
cohort, Gilleard and Higgs (2007) argue, has THE THIRD AGE
shaped a distinctive cultural field, whose
parameters of personal choice and individu- Linked to but separable from all of the “stages
alized lifestyle have sustained the pursuit of of life,” “ages of age,” and sociocultural
“distinction” into later life. Echoing some of conceptualizations of the third-age/fourth-age
the themes of persona agency in Laslett’s distinction is the concept of “successful” or
work, they point out the need for those enter- “productive aging.” The American gerontolo-
ing retirement to make purposeful choices gist Scott Bass (2011) credits Robert Butler for
about how they wish to live their third age. In introducing the concept of productive aging in
the process, the emerging later lifestyles of the early 1980s, illustrating the continuing
this generation are undermining of the old economic, personal, and social capacities of
institutionalized structures of the life course older people to remain productive members of
(Gilleard and Higgs 2005). society. This was developed further in Bass’s
Unlike the third age, Gilleard and Higgs own work and in the work of Rowe and Kahn
argue, the fourth age is not a cultural field in their book Successful Aging (1998). While
but a social imaginary, realized less in life- originally framed around economic produc-
style and lived experience than in and tivity and the contribution that older people
through the gaze of others, whether medi- could make – as producers – to the economy,
ated by the discourse and practices of social the concept of productive aging moved gradu-
policy or through the cultural representa- ally from issues of employment and employa-
tions of the lives of others. Adopting Charles bility to indicate overall social engagement. In
 5

a sense this recapitulates Havighurst’s earlier in or not in “productive employment,” or it

“activity” model of aging which argued that can involve a much more complex multidi-
remaining “active” was the key to successful mensional assessment of “success.”
aging (Taylor and Bengston 2001, 121). Rowe and Kahn (1997) follow the latter
Rowe and Kahn’s term “successful aging,” approach, basing the identification of successful
like that of Butler’s earlier “productive aging upon three parameters: the absence of
aging,” has been characterized as one of the disease, a high level of functioning, and what
“buzzwords in gerontology not yet adequately they term an active engagement with living.
defined … yet increasingly popular” (Taylor They proposed that each of the three compo-
and Bengston 2001, 122–3). In much the nents of successful aging includes subparts.
same way as both Laslett’s and the Baltes’ Thus low probability of disease refers not only
concepts of the third age, the term serves an to the absence or presence of disease but also to
implicit function of identifying who is and risk factors for disease. High functional level
who is not “productive,” “successful,” and/or includes both physical and mental functioning;
“active” and by implication creates alternative while active engagement with life is most con-
categories of those who do not fill such roles. cerned with interpersonal relations and pro-
Bass (2011, 180–1) has tried to widen this ductive activity (1997, 433).
personological framework by considering Despite their advocacy for a “new
the role of societies as either “supportive,” gerontology” that extends its focus from the
“neutral,” or “negative” in fostering third age “problems of aging” to issues of successful
or productive aging opportunities. aging, Rowe and Kahn’s work has been
Such approaches that construe the third criticized as stigmatizing and marginalizing
age as a period of productive or successful people who fail to meet the criteria of success
aging focus either upon the role of older (Minkler and Fadem 2002). Such criticisms
people within the economy – that is, their echo those made more generally about the
engagement with productive labor – or upon third-age/fourth-age distinction, reflecting
the individual’s “biopsychosocial” functional- social gerontology’s collective unease with the
ity without particular reference to their very idea of a positive “third age.” It is to these
chronological age. They do not provide a criticisms that we now turn.
theoretical account of the terms, but
rather operationalize them as outcomes of
unspecified social, political, personal, or THE THIRD-AGE/FOURTH-AGE
biological processes. In this sense they echo DISTINCTION AND ITS CRITICS
much earlier historical divisions between
those fit for and those too frail for labor, and A number of writers in social gerontology
their policy implications assume either a have criticized the very idea of dividing later
return to work for those still fit and productive life into third-age/fourth-age categories.
(third agers) or a release from labor for those Some have decried all attempts to create any
deemed economically unproductive (fourth such divisive categories within the community
agers). The main task for those concerned of old age – either claiming a common bond
with investigating successful aging is among “old” people of shared discrimination
methodological, namely identifying the and social and cultural marginality, or
key parameters that define “success” or “pro- arguing that such distinctions mask other
ductiveness.” This can involve simply an more socially fundamental divisions between
account of those aged 60 and over who are “two nations” in retirement (Bury 1995;
6

Calasanti and King 2011; Scharf 2009). only the loosest of leitmotifs to understand the
Multiple divisions exist within later life, they changing nature of later life. On the other hand,
argue, between men and women, between these recent theorizations about the third-age/
white and non-white, or between rich and fourth-age division offer valuable insights into
poor, but they exist primarily as sites of ine- new and important conceptual domains in
quality rather than as badges of differential gerontology and the sociology of the life
merit or “success” in staying young and active. course. They appear worth pursuing.
While these arguments may be compelling
at a general level, the alternative “divisions” SEE ALSO: Aging; Aging and Health;
they draw attention to are not particularly Life Course
distinctive of later life, nor can they explain
the emergence of a new or different kind of REFERENCES
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