Chapter 9Political Economy of Health and Agingby Carroll L Estes, Steven Wallace, and Karen W. Linkins |
| This chapter provides a critical perspective on health and aging that seeks to illuminate the relations between the state, health and aging. The chapter covers several key topics: trends in population aging and the surrounding "crisis constructions" of the Baby Boom (known as apocalyptic demography) and the attendant politics of aging; health and health status in old age; an exploration of critical approaches to health and aging incorporating theoretical perspectives of political econnomy, feminist theories and theories of racial inequality - and these as contrasted with dominant theories of health and aging; and the medicalization, commodification, and the rationalization of old age and aging through social policy. The political economy approach asks how, in capitalist society, the state regulates and reproduces different life chances throughout the life course and how this ultimately affects the health and health care of older persons. |