Friday, February 26, 2021

Lupine Publishers|China, Aging and Health

 

  Lupine Publishers | Journal of Health Research and Reviews


Abstract

Academics from across the world are increasingly concerned about the rising numbers of older people in their society. There are worries about the inadequacy of pension funds, of growing pressures on health systems, and on the inability of shrinking numbers of younger people to carry the burden of their elders. This article focuses on such health issues in China, where the older people have become a rapidly expanding proportion of the population. While resources do need to be targeted on the vulnerable older people, the presumption that older people as a whole are an economic and health burden must be questioned. This is an agist view that needs to be combated by locating how bio-medical views on aging seep into health policy spaces in China that position negative perceptions of aging as both individual and populational problems. The article then moves to observe the implications of bio-medicine for older people in China in terms of “vulnerable” aging but deconstruct such “fixed” explanations by juxtaposing active aging as key narrative that epitomizes “declining to decline” as espoused by health sciences.

Keywords: Aging; Health; Biomedicalization; China; Policy

Introduction

There is no doubt that in many societies around the globe older people are a growing proportion of the global population Krug [1]. The age structure of the global population is changing from one in which younger people predominated to a society in which people in later life constitute a substantial proportion of the total population. While the biological and psychological models of aging inscribe it as an “inevitable” and “universal” process, an aging population is neither Phillipson [2]. Transformations in the age profile of a population are a response to political and health structures. A major concern for organizations such as the United Nations and World Bank focuses on the number of such “dependent” older people in world society Krug [1]. Indeed, older people in particular constitute a large section of populations in global aging. In relation to public services that have to be paid for by “younger” working people, the percentage of the population has been used to signify such “burdensome” numbers. Not only are older people seen as dependent but also children under school leaving age and people over the retirement age. Dependency rates-that is, the number of dependants related to those of working age-altered little over the twentieth century and yet the notion of “burden” group retains its legitimacy. The reason there has been so little change during a period of so-called rapid aging populations is that there has been a fall in the total fertility rate (the average number of children that would be born to each woman if the current age-specific birth rates persisted throughout her child-bearing life) Phillipson [2].

Changes in the age structures of all societies also affect total levels of labor force participation in society, because the likelihood that an individual will be in the labor force varies systematically by age. Concurrently, global population aging is projected to lead to lower proportions of the population in the labor force in highly industrialized nations, threatening both productivity and the ability to support an aging population Powell [3]. Coupled with rapid growth in the young adult population in Third World countries, the World Bank [4] foresees growing “threats” to international stability, pitting different demographic-economic regions against one another. That the United Nations (2002) views the relationship between aging populations and labor force participation with panic recognizes important policy challenges, including the need to reverse recent trends toward decreasing labor force participation of workers in late-middle and old age despite mandatory retirement in both Western and Eastern countries such as the UK Jackson and Powell [5] and China Chen and Powell, 2011. Notwithstanding this, in China there is also an ongoing huge increase in the aging population that replicates global trends. It can be seen that the percentage of the aging population has increased from just over 4.4 percent to just under 7 percent from 1953 to 2000 Cook and Murray [6]. Note that the increase has not been constant, reflecting the negative impact of the Great Leap Forward and the successive famines upon the demographic profile, shown in the results of the 1964 Census.

Since that latter date, the percentage of the elderly has nearly doubled, while the actual numbers have more than tripled, being approximately 3.6 times that of 1964 by the year 2000. By 2000, there were 88 million Chinese aged 65 or over, compared to just under 25 million in 1964, an increase of 63 million plus in 36 years.

As is well known, China’s population policy, most usually referred to as the Single Child Family Program (although some Chinese commentators regard the phrase as a misnomer, given that more than one child is possible within a number of situations), has led to a rapid deceleration in the birth rate, which was only 13.38 per thousand in 2001, compared to 21.06 in 1990 and 18.25 in 1978 Cook and Murray [6]. This controversial policy, lambasted and praised in equal measure depending on perspective, has meant a rapid expansion in the number of single children only households at the very same time that the proportion of the elderly has also increased as a new era of prosperity has reached many households in China. Estimates suggest that up to 300 million less people have been born as a result of this process of state intervention, but Murray [7] has built on the earlier work of D.G. Johnson and others to suggest that improved living standards via modernization would have led to the same outcome voluntarily as growing numbers of urban dwellers in particular chose to reduce their family size. This last point hints at the important spatial dimension of demographic change in China. There is on the one hand a marked contrast between urban and rural life in China and, closely related to this, a marked contrast between Eastern China and Western China (Cook and Powell, 2007). It is in the heavily urbanized “Gold Coast” of the Eastern Seaboard in which China’s spatial transformation is most dramatic, with fast-expanding cities being especially concentrated in the Pearl River delta of the Southeast and the Yangtse Delta in Central East China Cook and Murray [6].

Hence, it is not simply that the Chinese government has belatedly recognized “the greying” of populational constructions and policy implications, it is that they continue to look for knowledge of aging as the power to define old age as a social problem in terms of dualistic distinctions between deviancy and normality. An aging population, like that of an individual being studied by bio-medical models, is seen as a “burden” problem in terms of economic management of Eastern (and Western) economies. It could be argued when looking at the effects of a so-called “demographic time bomb” across US, Europe, and Asia, it may have been grossly exaggerated. Such old age, therefore, has been perceived negatively via a process of “ageism”—stereotyping older people simply because of their chronological age. Agist stereotypes such as “aging populations” act to stigmatize and consequently marginalize older people and differentiate them from groups across the life-course who are not labeled “old” (Bytheway, 1993). One of the ways to interpret social aging such as being a categorization whether it be in individual or populational terms is through use of theorizing on what it means to age in society; that is, concerns and social issues associated with aging and the ways in which these themes are influenced and at the same time influence the society in which people live. Thus, to understand the process of aging, looking through the lens of the “sociological imagination” is not to see it as an individualized problem rather as a societal issue that is faced by both First World and Third World nations as a whole. In supporting this latter view, there is a need to focus on how populational discourses of aging in China are influenced and reinforced by bio-medical models of aging that help drive perceptions of older people as a burdensome group.

There are important implications for how aging is viewed by not only in terms of global aging but more specifically to China and the arrangement of political and economic structures that create, and sanction social policies grounded in knowledge bases of “burdensome” populations cf Powell [5]. Such knowledge bases are focused on: one, “biological aging” which refers to the internal and external physiological changes that take place in the individual body; two, psychological aging is understood as the developmental changes in mental functioning-emotional and cognitive capacities. Bio-medical theories of aging can be distinguished from social construction of aging: (1) focusing on the bio-psychological constituent of aging, and (2) on how aging has been socially constructed. One perspective is driven from “within” and privileges the expression from inner to outer worlds. The other is much more concerned with the power of external structures that shape individuality. In essence, this social constructionism poses the problem from the perspective of an observer looking in, whilst the biomedical model takes the stance of inside the individual looking out Powell and Biggs [8]. There has long been a tendency in matters of aging and old age to reduce the social experience of aging to its biological dimension from which are derived a set of normative “stages” which over-determine the experience of aging. Accordingly, being “old,” for example, would primarily be an individualized experience of adaptation to inevitable physical and mental decline and of preparation for death. The paradox of course is that the homogenizing of the experience of old age which the reliance on the biological dimension of old age entails is in fact one of the key elements of the dominant discourse on aging and old age. It is interesting that comparative historical research on aging in Eastern culture highlights an alternative perception of aging; in 18th Century China has highlighted a rather different path as to the conceptualization of aging as a scientific process developed by western rationality. For example, Cook and Powell (2003) observe that traditional Chinese society placed older people on a pedestal. They were valued for their accumulated knowledge, their position within the extended family, and the sense of history and identity that they helped the family to develop Murray [9]. Respect for elderly people was an integral part of Confucian doctrine, especially for the family patriarch.

This was a view that was also prevalent in Ancient Greece with the notions of “respect” for older people especially regarding gendered issues of patriarchy (cf Bytheway, 1993). Prior to industrialization, in India, there was a bestowment that older people had responsible leadership roles and powerful decisionmaking positions because of their vast “experience,” “wisdom” and “knowledge” Katz [10]. It seems with the instigation of Western science and rationality, aging began to be viewed in a different more problematic context than to the Confucian doctrine of aging epitomized in China and issues of respect for aging in India. Martin Heidegger [11] makes the similar point when he spoke of the Westernization of the World through the principles of Western science and language. Indeed, the technological developments due to industrialization, Westernization, and urbanization-under the purview of distorted form of modernity-have neglected these statuses of aging by downgrading its conceptualization. Part of understanding individuality in Western culture, the birth of “science” gave legitimate credibility to a range of bio-medical disciplines of whom were part of its umbrella. In particular, the bio-medical model has become one of the most controversial yet powerful of both disciplines and practice with regard to aging Powell and Biggs [8]. The bio-medical model represents the contested terrain of decisions reflecting both normative claims and technological possibilities. Bio-medicine refers to medical techniques that privilege a biological and psychological understanding of the human condition and rely upon “scientific assumptions” that position attitudes to aging in society for their existence and practice. Hence, scientific medicine is based on the biological and psychological sciences. Some doctrines of the biomedical model more closely reflect the basic sciences while others refer to the primary concern of medicine, namely diseases located in the human body. Most important is that these beliefs hold together, thereby reinforcing one another and forming a coherent orientation toward the mind and body. Indeed, the mind-body dualism had become the location of regimen and control for emergence of scientific in a positivist methodological search for objective “truth.” The end product of this process in the West is the “biomedical model.”

In this sense, bio-medicine is based on the biological and psychological sciences. Some doctrines of the biomedical model more closely reflect the basic sciences while others refer to the primary concern of medicine, namely diseases located in the human body. Most important is that these beliefs hold together, thereby reinforcing one another and forming a coherent whole Powell [5]. By developping an all-encompassing range of bio-medical discourses, many forms of social injustice could be justified as “natural,” inevitable and necessary for the successful equilibrium of the social whole such as mandatory retirement and allocation of pensions Phillipson [2]. Bio-medical gerontology is a fundamental domain where medical discourses on aging have become located and this is very powerful in articulating “truths” about aging. Under the guise of science and its perceived tenets of value-freedom, objectivity and precision (Biggs, 1993), bio-medical gerontology has a cloth of legitimacy. Biological and psychological characteristics associated with aging have been used to construct scientific representations of aging in modern society. The characteristics of biological aging as associated with loss of skin elasticity, wrinkled skin, hair loss or physical frailty perpetuates powerful assumptions that help facilitate attitudes and perceptions of aging. It may be argued that rather than provide a scientific explanation of aging, such an approach homogenizes the experiences of aging by suggesting these characteristics are universal, natural and inevitable. These assumptions are powerful in creating a knowledge base for health and social welfare professionals who work with older people in particular medical settings such as a hospital or general doctors’ surgery and also for social workers Powell [3].

These new forms of social regulation were also reflected in the family and the community. Hence, modern systems of social regulation have become increasingly blurred and wide-ranging Powell [3]. Increasingly, modern society regulated the populational construct by sanctioning the knowledge and practices of the new human sciences-particularly psychology and biology. These are called gerontological “epistemes” which are “the total set of relations that unite at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences and possibly formalized systems” Foucault [12]. The “psy” complex or biomedical epistemes refers to the network of ideas about the “nature” of individuals, their perfectability, the reasons for their behavior and the way they may be classified, selected and controlled. It aims to manage and improve individuals by the manipulation of their qualities and attributes and is dependent upon scientific knowledge and professional interventions and expertise. Human qualities are seen as measurable and calculable and thereby can be changed and improved. The new human sciences had as their central aim the prediction of future behavior Powell [3]. Powell and Biggs [8] suggest that a prevailing ideology of ageism manifests itself in the bio-medical model via its suggestion that persons with such biological traits have entered a spiral of decay, decline and deterioration. Along with this goes certain assumptions about the ways in which people with outward signs of aging are likely to think and behave. For example, there are assumptions that “older people are poor drivers” or that older people have little interest in relationships that involve sexual pleasure that are all explained away by “decline” and “deterioration” master narratives that comprise an aging culture. The effects of the “decline” and “decay” analogies can be most clearly seen in the dominance of medicotechnical solutions to the problems that aging and even an “aging population” Phillipson [2] is thought to pose. Here, the bio-medical model has both come to colonize notions of age and reinforce ageist social prejudices to the extent that “decline” has come to stand for the process of aging itself Powell [5]. Estes and Binney 1989 cited in Powell [5] have used the expression “biomedicalization of aging” which has two closely related narratives: (1) the social construction of aging as a medical problem, and (2) ageist practices and policies growing out of thinking of aging as a medical problem. They suggest: “Equating old age with illness has encouraged society to think about aging as pathological or abnormal. The undesirability of conditions labeled as sickness or illness transfer to those who have these conditions, shaping the attitudes of the persons themselves and those of others towards them. Sick role expectations may result in such behaviors as social withdrawal, reduction in activity, increased dependency and the loss of effectiveness and personal control-all of which may result in the social control of the elderly through medical definition, management and treatment” Estes and Binney, 1989, quoted in Powell [5].

These authors highlight how individual lives and physical and mental capacities that were thought to be determined solely by biological and psychological factors, are, in fact, heavily influenced by social environments in which people live. This remains invisible to the bio-medical approach because they stem from the societal interaction before becoming embedded and recognizable as an “illness” in the aging body of the person. For example, in the “sociology of emotions” the excursion of inquiry has proposed that “stress” is not only rooted in individualistic emotional responses but also regulated, classified, and shaped by social norms of western culture Powell and Biggs [8]. This type of research enables the scope of aging to be broadened beyond biomedical individualistic accounts of the body. On this basis alone, sociology invites us to recognize that aging is not only a socially constructed problem by bio-medical sciences but also the symptomatic deep manifestation of underlying relations of power and inequality that cuts across and through age, class, gender, disability and sexuality Powell and Biggs [8]; Powell [5]. At this level of analysis, sociology addresses biomedicine as one of the elements of social control and domination legitimated through power/knowledge of “experts” Powell and Biggs [8]. Such expert formation has also been labeled as agist (Bytheway, 1993). Ageism is where the assumptions made about old age are negative, which treats older people not as individuals but as a homogenous group, which can be discriminated against (Bytheway, 1993). Chinese society uses age categories to divide this ongoing process into stages or segments of life. These life stages are socially constructed rather than inevitable. Aging, too, is a production of social category. At any point of life span, age simultaneously denotes a set of social constructs, defined by the norms specific to a given society at a specific point in history. Thus, a specific period of life: infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age or old age is influenced by the structural entities of a given society. Therefore, aging is not to be considered the mere product of biological-psychological function rather a consequence of sociocultural factors and subsequent life-chances. Indeed, society has a number of culturally and socially defined notions of what Phillipson [2] calls the “stages of life.” However, a fundamental question is how bio-medical gerontology has stabilized itself with a positivist discourse that not only reflects history but also the total preoccupation with the “problems” of aging that have important implications for older people and health lifestyles in China.

Bio-Medicine, Family Care, and Aging: Implications for China

The dominant bio-medical discourse of aging in China dwells on the processes of physical deterioration associated with becoming older. In this perspective, the aging body has to deal with increased levels of incapacity, both physical and mental, and becomes increasingly dependent on younger others for sustenance and survival; it is the family through informal care that has to provide care of older people who may have illnesses, according to the Law on the Rights and Interests of the Elderly, introduced by the PRC in 1996. The bio-medical problematization of aging has secreted wider questions of power and inequality; especially influential is occidental modernity. A powerful discourse is thus developed which follows that of the West, via notions of “social inclusion” and “family care,” and the all-important role of the consumer in buying products for the elderly, from disability aids through to private pensions (Powell and Cook, 2001). The latter suggest that this process constructs the aging body as a site of surveillance by the Chinese state, constructing them as, following Foucault, objects of power and knowledge in which “it’s your age” is the prevailing authority response to the elderly “customer.”

Powell and Cook (2001) have further noted that older people will be increasingly probed for social, psychological and economic factors such as “frailty” or “expected level of supervision.” “There are indications, for example, that where care homes are provided, these are for the more active elderly, rather than those in greatest need” (Powell and Cook, 2001: 7). This Foucauldian point has been borne out via an article on Shanghai China Daily [13] with “most nursing homes in Shanghai have entry criteria that target a narrow minority of elderly people. Some admit only those who are capable of independent living while others accept only bedridden patients. While dementia is a common condition among the elderly, those afflicted by it are generally excluded by the criteria.” Even more seriously, if a patient’s condition changes according to these criteria, he or she is forced to leave the home. “The lack of a continuum of care creates devastating situations for the patients and their families.” Further, nursing homes have only minimal level of medical support available, and patients are transferred to hospitals too readily if they have an ailment much beyond the common cold. The patient can then lose their place in the nursing home if their bed is transferred and thus be subject to further stress. “Preventive care, physical therapy, and spiritual care, which are crucial components of care for the elderly, are generally overlooked. Many nursing homes do not provide such services out of concerns for cost or accident liabilities.” The Shanghai article also notes, damningly, that: “The financial burden of long-term care accumulates on an elderly population already enduring tighter budget constraints because of retirement and unemployment. In the absence of government subsidy, the higher fees charged by selfsustained nursing homes deprive elderly people with limited financial means of their access to care” China Daily [13].

In the light of these and other issues the PRC government is attempting to change the ways in which the elderly are perceived, via campaign slogans such as “respect the elderly” and “people first.” The former campaign seeks to encourage younger people to visit the elderly on a regular basis in order to reduce the sense of isolation that the elderly can feel, to look out for their needs out on the streets and to generally raise awareness of the situation of older people. There is a resonance here with ancient Confucian tradition in which the elderly were venerated. There have also been attempts to encourage younger people to think about “healthy aging,” but this is meant in terms of ensuring that they themselves have adequate financial provision as they age. “People first” is the attempt to recognize that “aging is an individual-specific process” and that “a functional healthcare system for the elderly should integrate all aspects of care … emphasizing and fulfilling individual needs and preferences” CD [13]. Older people in rural areas are more likely to have to face emigration of their children to the cities as China’s urbanization proceeds apace. This can leave them physically and socially isolated in a remote rural area, no longer able to rely upon their family to look after them in their old age, as was once the tradition. Indeed, as social norms and values change, younger people may no longer be willing, even when they are able, to support elderly parents, and in recent years the law has been used to take children to court in order to force them to support their parents.

For example, a new law came into force on October 1, 1996 on “The Rights and Interests of the Elderly” that explicitly states that: “the elderly shall be provided for mainly by their families, and their family members shall care for and look after them” Du and Tu [14]. Notwithstanding the legal process, at its most extreme, the concerns of elderly people are expressed via suicide-gerontocide. The elderly can struggle in the face of the massive social changes that China is facing, and the abandonment of the tradition in which they themselves would have looked after their own parents and grandparents. They may feel so stressed and alienated that suicide seems the preferred option. For example, a 76-year-old man blew himself up in a courtroom in protest during a case against his family, who had offered only 350 Yuan a month to support him when 600 Yuan was required (8 Yuan = 1 USD) Cook and Murray [6]. In a society of rapid transformation, older people in particular may be vulnerable to the sense of abandonment within a more materialistic and selfish new world epitomized by the forces of global capitalism and seeping impingement into day to day living of older people in China.

Declining to Decline-Active Aging?

At the other end of the scale is the active elderly, probably the ideal state for all elderly people. Briefly, older people traditionally were more likely to be active within rural areas of China, in part because they had to be in order to maintain their livelihood. This particular tradition continues today; official data for the 1990s showed that 26 percent of people in rural areas still depended on their own labor earnings compared to only 7 percent in urban areas. This is not about advocating that elderly people should have to work to continue to earn a living, but we are suggesting that an active lifestyle be promoted where possible. In the cities of China today, it is heartening to see the colonization of open space throughout the hours of daylight and even into the evening by the elderly who are engaged in a wide variety of activities, from the traditional (such as taijiquan and qigong), walking one’s pet bird, traditional dance or poetry writing using brushes dipped in water only, illustrating the ephemeral and passing nature of life itself). Hopefully, the increased pollution which China’s cities face will not erode the potential gains from these and other activities for older people. An alternative discourse on aging can point to ways in which the elderly can be deproblematized as a negative medical, economic, political and social category. This must begin with appreciation of older people first of all as people rather than as a category (Powell 2006). Older people share, however, apart from their longevity, a wide and deep experience of life itself, and thus of life situations. In China, older people used to be venerated because they were, almost literally, the founts of wisdom, the holders of accumulated knowledge far in advance of the younger members of the family and community. Today, knowledge is far less likely to be oral, and far less dependent on accumulation by the individual. Instead, it is increasingly available at the touch of a button via an Internet search engine, even if there are some restrictions on web provision in the PRC. But, it can be suggested, there should still be a major role for the accumulated wisdom of older people’s experiences as carriers of historical wisdom.

In China, there is a growing awareness of the need to have a sophisticated, multidimensional policy to respond to the needs of older people. But there is still a strong bio-medical emphasis on surveillance and control. It could be suggested that policy needs to be driven by the elderly themselves wherever possible. They should be encouraged to define and state their own needs, provided with support when this is required, but the overriding emphasis should be on providing support that fosters active lifestyle and independent living wherever and whenever possible. This means encouragement to the elderly to share their accumulated experience, to provide their oral histories and their views on the momentous changes that they, along with China itself, have lived through. Older people should be valued and involved in wider society on terms that they themselves desire, recognizing that a wish for privacy and seclusion might be their preference.

Concluding Comments

Finally, it is worth noting that cases exist where narratives and micro-histories coexist and play a role in producing and strengthening social exclusion. The medical “gaze” refers here to discourses, languages, and ways of seeing that shape the understanding of aging into questions that center on, and increase the power of, the State, and restrict or de-legitimize other possibilities. A consequence is that areas of policy may at first seem tangential to the medical project come to be reflected in its particular distorting mirror. The Chinese “Duomin”-a subcategory of a wider population officially catalogued as fallen people, beggars or ruined households-were seen as inferior and condemned to bear low status on account of a number of beliefs prevailing among mainstream society. The narrative concerns a creational myth that asserts that the Doumin were closely related to Chinese ethnic minorities like the She and Yao and that all these groups shared the belief in Pan-hu, a common dog ancestor. As to micro-histories, we run into different stories which state that the Doumin were either:

a. Descendants of Song Dynasty traitors, deserters or prisoners;

b. Remnants of antique non-Chinese ethnic groups;

c. Foreigners who adopted the customs of Chinese lower social strata; and

d. Descendants of domestic slaves. Yet in all cases the Doumins excluded and outcaste status came about as a punishment society bestowed upon them. They were reduced to performing polluting occupations (ox head lanterns making, ironwork, barbers, caretakers, frog-catching, entertaining, among others) and limited to live in segregated quarters outside town.

Furthermore, the Doumin were not allowed to study or take public office, nor serve as officers and were obliged to marry among themselves. This suggests that their social identity was a result of the legal status imposed on them and not the other way around. As Hansson [15]: 87expresses it: “Once fallen people had been labeled as beggars, they had little choice but to conform to the behavior expected from people who had the social identity associated with their legal status.” For older people if they are regarded as an inferior category then their behavior will begin to mimic this categorization. “Dependent is as dependent does” is a major danger in the continuation of the dominance of the bio-medical model of aging.

A key point here is that the notion of the “bio-medical gaze,” not only draws our attention to the ways that aging has become “medicalized” as a social issue in China, it also highlights the way in which older people are encouraged for as long as possible to “work on themselves” as active subjects. Thus, as Blaikie (1999) has pointed out, older citizens are encouraged to take greater personal responsibility for their health and for extending this period of their active aging. Those who are defined in relation to their health then discover themselves transformed into passive objects of medical power in China. How do we go beyond this in managing old age? We could suggest macro-social practices have become translated into particular ways of growing old that not only shape what it is to age successfully, but are also adopted by older adults, modified to fit their own life circumstances and then fed back into wider narratives of aging well. Harry R. Moody (1998) coins this as the “Illderly” and “Wellderly” and managing aging experiences is about resistance to dominant discourses of bio-medicine.

According to Frank [16], the personal experience of illness is mediated by bio-medical procedures that shape and contribute to how the older people recognizes their own process of ill health and recover. Katz [17] notes that the maxim of “activity for its own sake” as a means of managing later life not only reflects wider social values concerning work and non-work, it also provides personal means of control and acts as grounds for resistance [18-20]. In addition, Phillipson [2] argues that changes in westernized policies has occurred from seeing old age as a burden to seeing it as an opportunity to promote productive aging. This reflects an attempt to shape acceptable forms of aging whilst encouraging older adults to self-monitor their own success at conforming to the challenging paradigm to hegemony of bio-medicine and its neglect of the agency of older people [21-24].

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Lupine Publishers|Trust, Risk, Aging and Health in Asia: A New Philosophy

 

  Lupine Publishers | Journal of Health Research and Reviews

Introduction

This paper explores the concepts of “trust” and “risk” that both are theoretical tools and arguably major facets of “late modernity.” During the 1970s, the use of the notion “risk” was mainly confined to “natural sciences,” when the concept was used to analyse and improve the “security” of technological systems. Re-terroritialized definitions of trust and risk are rapidly changing theoretical knowledge bases of gerontology. A more nuanced informed understanding of transition of a trust society to a risk society illustrates the interconnectedness of an aging population and relationship to health. Risk is much more than a computation of costs and benefits, it is a theoretical mechanism for weighing different sets of political and economic orientations which impinge on the positioning of older people, health and aging populations. The article takes to task what we understand by trust and risk. Drawing from examples in Asia, the article assesses how the transition from a trust society to a risk society has implications for how older people are made health subjects in contemporary society. This article explores the concept of “risk” in relation to the academic study of aging and health in Asia. Ideas related with what has been conceptualised as the “risk society” Beck [1] have become part of the platform of how we define and position the “social spaces” in which to grow old. This has startling continuities across Asia. These spaces have served to place the definition of what it means to be an older person Phillipson & Powell [2]. As Ulrich Beck [1] claims, in the conditions of advanced modernity, growing old moves from being a “collective” to an “individual” experience and responsibility.

Indeed, foremost in Asian societies with developed health systems they are governed by concepts of risk and individualisation Giddens [3]. Alan Walker and Gerhard Naegele [4] convey the critical message that there is a pressing need for governments and other agencies to respond to changing circumstances of an aging Asian population. Asian political processes have become preoccupied with the fiscal support of the delivery of social services to an aging population as this demographic shift alters the balance between those in work and paying taxes, and those in retirement receiving benefits and consuming health care in Asia. More specifically, in contemporary Asian society, risk is a broad concept that extends over a broad range of social practices that impinge on the experiences of older people. Current debates about older people and relationship to sexuality, crime, national security, food safety, employment and health are all underscored by risk Phillipson [5]. Awareness of the transnational nature of risk has led the United Nations to form its own Commission on Human Security. A recent report by the UN Commission suggests ways in which the security of older people, for example, might be advanced-from humanitarian strategies through to economic, health and educational strategies Powell [6].

What is Risk?

In science, risk has traditionally been approached as an objective material entity, to be mastered by processes of calculation, assessment and probability. In the 21st century, “advances” in science and medicine led to the eradication of many infectious diseases, raised life expectancy in aging and improved quality of life across Asia. The nature of scientific knowledge about risk and impact on aging has articulated the perspective that as a person goes through aging process there are heightened risks to the human body-in the mind and internal organs of the body Phillipson & Powell [2]. It has gradually become clear that the very institutions entrusted with regulating risks have themselves transmuted into risk producers. In recent times, multinational corporate business, science, medicine, and government have all been accused of generating various dangers to public health which impinges on the safety of older people. In response to public concerns about unbounded techno-scientific development and the apparent inefficacy of expert systems, interest in risk has gathered momentum within health science disciplines in recent years Giddens [3]. However, whilst the language of risk has become prolific, the concept itself remains cloaked in ambiguity and its relationship to aging scantily researched; making risk and aging an important and significant issue for social policy. Yet, it is under theorised and reified in its conceptualization. Such an approach seeks to capture the dimensions of subjectivity within the social-political constraints that shape individual lives. This allows reconstructions of logics of action or structuration behind current neo-liberal selfrepresentations of aging identity. It could be supposed that such constructions enable us to reconstruct the complexity of aging in social contexts and the influence of, for example, health on these experiences as a ground for risk perception. Importantly, the notion of an aging society becomes secondary to the emphasis on the way in which families and individuals handle the demands associated with an aging population. Phillipson and Powell suggest that there are three factors that make risk important to understanding aging: First, the globalisation of aging is increasingly recognised. All societies (poor as well as rich) are undergoing similar population transformations (albeit with notable exceptions such as those in countries devastated by the AIDS virus). Aging thus becomes simultaneously both a biographical event and one shared with different cultures and societies across the globe. Second, aging experiences are themselves hugely (and increasingly) diverse. Under the guise of the health state, growing old was compressed into a fairly limited range of institutions and identities (notably in respect of income and lifestyles). Aging in the post-health society, however, has substantially expanded in respect of social opportunities as well as economic inequalities. Third, aging is also being changed by what Beck [1] describes as the era of reflexive modernization. This may be conceived in terms of how individuals and the lay public exert control and influence on the shape and character of modernity Phillipson & Powell [2] p. 33.’ The more Asian societies are modernised, the more older people acquire the ability to reflect upon the social forces of their existence within the conditions of risk constraints. Hence, we need to understand the major social forces which impinge on aging itself. Such social forces that create risk associated with aging. This implies a breakdown in trust as a key modernist principle in contemporary society.

A Trust Society?

There are increasing attempts to conceptualize the notion of “trust” in society. Someone who trusts has an expectation directed to an event. The expectations are based on the ground of incomplete knowledge about the probability and incomplete control about the occurrence of the event Caplan [7]. Trust is of relevance for action and has consequences for the trusting agent if trust is confirmed or disappointed. Thus, trust is connected with risk Giddens [3]. Up to now there have been few attempts to work out a systematic scheme of different forms of trust in between older people and individuals, institutions or policies that impinge on their identity performance. Social trust tends to be high among older people who believe that their public safety is high Walker & Naegele [4]. Ewald [8] distinguishes between trust in contracts between people and State (such as pension provision), trust in friendships across intergenerational lines, trust in love and relationships and trust in foreign issues (associated with national identity across Asian countries). However, sociological theories which suppose a general change in modernity Beck [1] assume that with the erosion of traditional institutions and scientific knowledge trust. This becomes an issue more often produced actively by individuals than institutionally guaranteed. Trust seems to be something that is produced individually by experience and over time and cannot be immediately and with purpose be produced by Asian governments without dialogical interaction with older people on issues affecting their lifestyles and life-chances such as care, pensions, employment and political representation in the Asiaan Union Walker & Naeghele [4]. Though as Giddens [3] stresses, risk is the feature of a society shifting its emphasis away from trust on traditional ties and social values. How risks are perceived and formulated as a breakdown in trust reflects the essentially discursive practices of politics and power in modernity itself. The ability to control and manage perceptions about moral intentions of a pervasive governmental rationality may be part of an understanding of risk and health.

Risk Society

The concept of risk has come to assume accelerating prominence in sociological writings of Ulrich Beck; far more so than the concept of “trust.” Beck [1] claims that modernization helps the self become an agent via processes of individualization which they both see as indicative of neo-liberalism; they advocate that the self become less constrained by traditional group identities and institutions but more constraint by the dynamics of markets (labor markets, consumer-markets) and secondary institutions, and becomes therefore a project to be reflexively worked on in the context of a globalised world. As we see the development of this the new global order, some risks such as those caused by hazardous industries, are transferred away from the developed countries to the Third world which has huge health implications. Thus, while Beck sees risk society as a catastrophic society, what we are seeing is the transference of certain risks through aversion and management. Beck acknowledges that some social groups are more affected than others by the distribution and growth of risks, and these differences may be structured through inequalities of class and social position. The disadvantaged have fewer opportunities to avoid risk because of their lack of resources compared with the advantaged. By contrast, the wealthy to a degree (income, power, or education), can purchase safety and freedom from risk Beck [1] p. 33. However, it is the gestation and the constellations of the risks, which are unknown, and thus risk affects those who have produced or profited from them, breaking down the previous social and geographic boundaries evident in modern Asian societies. Beck [1] argues that the “former colonies” of the world are soon becoming the waste dumps of the world for toxic and nuclear wastes produced by more privileged countries. Risks have become more and more difficult to calculate and control. Hence it can be argued that risks often affect both the wealthy and poor alike: “poverty is hierarchic and smog is democratic” Beck [1] p. 36. At the same time, because of the degree of interdependence of the highly specialised agents of modernisation in business, agriculture, the law and politics, there is no single agent responsible for any risk: “there is a general complicity, and the complicity is matched by a general lack of responsibility. Everyone is cause and effect” Beck [1] p. 33 and so “perpetrator and victim become identical” Beck [1] p. 38 in a consuming society. It is this invisibility of the threats that saturate the “risk society” making it harder to identify the offender of global risk. Beck [1], argues that this fundamentally poses the second challenge for analyses of these socially constituted industrial phenomena: interpretation becomes inherently a matter of perspective and hence political. Politicians constantly invoke science in their attempts to persuade the public that their policies and products are safe for personal health.

The inescapability of interpretation makes risks infinitely malleable and, as Beck[1], p. 23 insists, “open to social definition and construction.” This in turn put those in a position to define (and/or legitimate) risks-the mass media, scientists, politicians, and the legal profession-in key social positions (Phillipson & Powell, 2004). Beck makes the point that risk “is not an option which could be chosen or rejected in the course of political debate” Beck [9] p. 28. Instead this is an inescapable product and structural condition of advance industrialisation of where we produce the hazards of that system, in Beck’s words (1996, p. 31) “undermine and/ or cancel the established safety systems of the provident state’s existing risk calculation.” Beck [9] further exemplifies this point by examining contemporary hazards associated with nuclear power, chemical pollution, and genetic engineering and bio technology that cannot be limited or contained to particular spaces, and that which cannot be grasped through the rules of causality, and cannot be safeguarded, compensated, or insured against. They are therefore “glocal”: both local and global. Risk society is thus “Asian risk society” and risks affect a Asian citizenship. The questioning of the outcomes of modernity in terms of their production of risks is an outcome of reflexive modernisation. An awareness of risk, therefore, is heightened at the level of the everyday. In Asia, risk, in its purely technical meaning, came to rely upon conditions in which the probability estimates of an event are able to be known or knowable. This has the effect of paralysing action and bringing insurance systems that promised to cover eventualities into chaos. In Great Britain for example, the health state, an insurance system that promised to cater for people from cradle to the grave, is unable to sustain that promise for future generations. The health system as a system of social insurance is beginning to lose its legitimacy with the rise of private health insurance. In the United States, 70% of its population do not have private health insurance until Obamacare (universal coverage) which President Trump is attempting to bring down.

If this might be happening to older people in US, what are the implications in Asia? Two developments seem to be responsible for the growing risk awareness in modern industrialised societies in Asia, even though their respective contribution is contested. The new awareness of the limits of the technical and the mathematical/ statistical calculation of risk would cause an increase of concerns regarding the rational controllability of an uncertain future Beck [1]. Furthermore, the sustained endeavour to apply a new liberal style of governing modern societies would increasingly shift the responsibility of the management of risks and uncertainties from the state to the individual. Socio-demographic changes as well as shifts in governance contribute to the perception of risk and uncertainty regarding aging in two ways: First, they promote the understanding of risk and uncertainty in aging and second, they suggest to perceive age as risky and uncertain. In order to approach the concept of risk and aging it is suggested that by conceptualising risk in a broader framework of (un-)certainty Zinn [10] where risk is seen as a specific strategy to produce certainty in order to enable to act. The future becomes accessible for planning and action. In order to work on itself, the “self” or at least according to Beck [1] p. 181 relates to self-political rationalities and risk: “risks become the motor of self-politicization of modernity in industrial society.” One element of the “motor” of self-politicisation is how successful neoliberalism has been in fashioning common sense discourses around its political rhetoric. Beck [1] p. 77 claims what we are witnessing is a “completely altered relationship between autonomous and self-organized public spheres on the one hand, and sub-systems steered by money and administrative power on the other.” Selfautonomization coupled with administrative power is indicative of “risk”: neo-liberal features of social policy for older people. Older people living in neo-liberal EU societies have therefore moved toward a greater awareness of risk and are forced to deal with risks on an everyday basis: “Everyone is caught up in defensive battles of various types anticipating the hostile substances in one’s manner of living and eating” Beck [11] p. 45. The media for their part have taken up warnings of experts about risk and communicate them to their mass publics in the Asian Union. There is an ambivalence at the heart of Asia: on the one hand, older people are to be “managed” by other administrative powers such as professional experts in modernity Phillipson & Powell [2]; on the other hand, older people are left to govern themselves. This moral idea of freedom and responsibility is involved in the modern notion to govern Asian societies but is determined by the limits of everyday life in socioculturally different circumstances within a “risk society” Beck [1]. The tension between ideal and socio-cultural structured life constitutes the battleground of the disputes on the governance of aging. These, along with ties between generations, created a social, economic and moral space within which growing numbers of older people could be channelled and contained. For example, for a period of 20 years or more, moving older people into the zone of retirement and the health state, held at bay the underlying issue of securing a place and identity for aging within the framework of an advanced capitalist society. The meaning of later life was, temporarily at least, constructed out of a modernist vision where retirement and health were viewed as natural end-points to the human life cycle.

The governance of aging originally developed and was closely linked to the creation of a social security system in Asia influenced by Europe. The idea of prudence and self-responsibility among the working class was expressed through such institutions as the friendly society and the revolving building society and promoted both political quiescence and the stability needed to ensure steady growth in the later half of the 19th century Beck [1]. This system was supplanted by the development of insurance in the 20th century leading to the modern health state (Ewald, 1986). The provision for aging was originally not central, because at the end of the 19th century most people did not reach the age of 70 to claim a pension and live through this last phase of their life without having to work. The original concept was to save the worker and its family in case of death or disablement of the breadwinner Zinn [12]. The strategies of risk-management by means of insurance were understood as sharing them between all insured people, which should be in principle as much as possible. But this fundamental concept has changed recently as part of a general change in the idea of insurance as well as the government of citizens. The responsibility of the state and thereby the risks are given back to the public. As Baker and Simon [13], p. 4 recently pointed out, “. . . private pensions, annuities, and life insurance are engaged in an historic shift of investment risk from broad pools (the classic structure of risk spreading through insurance) to individual (middle-class) consumers and employees in return for the possibility of greater return.” The understanding of the individual as a self-responsible actor in Asia as given for granted underestimates the various resources and life experiences different people possess. The strategies to cope with risk and uncertainty in the life course are rather oriented on the circumstances of everyday life, personal values and life experiences that relate to self-responsibility. Governmental programs are mainly developed against the background of the model of a self-responsible actor, and increasingly address people with significant lack of cultural and economic resources as self-reflexive and rational actors Zinn & Taylor-Gooby [14]. Although this concept might be generally helpful in order to formulate political programs they regularly fail because of this assumption. The governmental constructions of risks and aging in Asia converge in the notion of rational acting old people. It does conceptually ignore that the ability to be autonomous and rational is not a question of context-independent (free) will or something what is just given, but it is provided by context factors as well as biographical experiences which shape expectations regarding the future. Thereby accumulated “local knowledge” Wynne [15] produces logics of how to act best in an uncertain context Zinn [10], which include the policy of the government as well. This is not only important when people are old, but in earlier life phases when they have to deal with their expectations regarding old age and have to take precautionary measures. The unequal resources available, the unreflected routines and the needs and execution of everyday life shape what is the basis to act people go through “aging” process Powell & Phillipson 2004.

The extrication of these actions can be traced to at least three types of crisis affecting the management of aging populations in the last quarter of the 20th century: economic, social, and cultural. The economic dimension has been well rehearsed, with successive crises from the mid-1970s onward undermining, first, the goal of full employment (and hence destabilising retirement), and, second, the fiscal basis of the health state (accelerated with the onset of a privatisation from the 1980s onward Phillipson & Powell [2]. However, we are neither a provident state and or a providing state. The dialectic of risk and social insurance systems of calculation have failed to address or predict the increase in longevity, the blurring of the life-course and the growing trend for smaller families. What we are beginning to see occur with entry and immersion in to a risk society is the fracturing of insurance social systems that have failed to make accurate predictions in the Asian Union Phillipson & Powell [2]. This has led for those who can afford to invest in various insurance policies ways of minimizing risk that may befall them in times, when illness occurs, unemployment (i.e., mortgage protection), death, which are all sold on the basis of what may happen in the future. The short fall of this is that elders from lower socio-economic groups in Asia who without insurance will be caught within the widening fractures appearing in the health state [16-18]. Aging is also being changed by what Beck [1] describes as the era of reflexive modernization. This may be conceived in terms of how individuals and the lay public exert control and influence on the shape and character of emerging global institutions.

Conclusion

The expectation of negative events in the future and the different ways of how to respond to such expectations is central for the critical approach to trust, risk, aging and health. Part of this reflexive response is the importance of recognising self-subjective dimensions of trust, biographical knowledge and resources that impinge on the existential shaping healthy aging [19-22]. Hence, this discussion provides a critical narrative to the importance to the study of aging and health in Asia [23,24]. It has become commonplace for academics and practitioners to explore, develop, and apply an assortment of health perspectives on risk. In an uncertain world, question around risk and risk management have become ever more pertinent, leading to reflections on a number of different levels about “ontological security.” There is an urgency to reflect on these existential issues to understand the health positioning of older people in Asian society that are characterised by increasing uncertainty and risk before we generate the conditions of trust.

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  Lupine Publishers | Journal of Health Research and Reviews


 

Letter to Editor

A Member of NHS Research. And have had lots of my different types of creative writing published in ‘United Press Ltd’, ‘Xlibris Publishers’ and quite regularly, an average 2 poems a month, in ‘The Blackpool Gazette’ local Newspaper.

An Important Message

Something that the World Government of Health, Health Secretaries, MPs and lots of different worldwide Government and Health Association Parties need to pay deep attention to. This is because what is about to be mentioned is ‘Very Important’ with regard to the future of everyone worldwide’s successful full gain of much more Mental ‘Healthiness’ and ‘Happiness’. Aren’t all Governments seeking to have more regard to The Publics Opinion of things, rather than making all decisions, and new ideas etc, by themselves. About to be mentioned here is a very important fact, that me and some friends have figured out, to be currently worsening everyone worldwide’s health. And the sooner via The NHS and Worldwide Health Association this is given deep consideration and planned to be fully investigated, the sooner the prospects of everyone worldwide getting much more Mentally ‘Healthier’ and ‘Happier’ will be looking reality.

The Important Fact

The thing that is getting everyone world-wide worse healthwise day after day, especially, though not only, people with psychological/behaviour mental problems, is the unexplicit/ unnatural title ‘Doctor’ being used. The answer to this is getting much more Explicit/Natural titles to be used instead, which staying a lot less stuck on people’s minds would result in Health Problems being thought of a lot less therefore suffered a lot less. E.G. With a reference to a ‘Health Consultant’ people will think naturally about ‘going to see them for a consultation about their health’ E.G. With a reference to a ‘Treatment Consultant’ people will think naturally about ‘going to see them for some treatment and a consultation about their health’. Where-as with reference to a ‘Doctor’ people can see this as naturally saying what? Or is it really an Unexplicit/ Unnatural confusing title. Speaking to someone with an Unexplict/ Unnatural title, such as ‘Doctor’, about health difficulties brings the problems more to the front of the sufferer’s mind, causing more thought, therefore more trouble of it.

This is because the word ‘Doctor’ only being able to be looked at in one way, and not as anything it’s explicitly saying, means it staying rather stuck on everyone’s mind, and therefore making all health problems mentioned to one of them, a lot more stuck on people’s mind too. People mentioning personal problems to one of this kind of title get them a lot more stuck on their mind, to be thought of therefore suffered a lot more. And the only answer to this is somehow getting the word ‘Doctor’ Off Their Mind to once more get their health problems Off Their Mind too (Figure 1). To have details and access to, and with deep appreciation sign, a certain very important petition me and some friends are doing at the moment, which with good support could lead to everyone worldwide getting much ‘Healthier’ and ‘Happier’, please look at the article towards the top of website index www.poetryemotion.org.uk.

Figure 1.

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The sooner this petition has success and can be deeply listened to by The Worlds Government of Health etc, the sooner everyone in this world can be confident of prospects of themselves and everyone else getting much more secure Mental ‘Healthiness’ and ‘Happiness’. If you’d like this to take place please, via ‘Deep Importance’ Sign the petition ASAP to play your part and take your responsibility in bringing big Health improvements worldwide. Over 1000 people have said they fully agree with what this petition is saying, and via Care2 or Facebook have put ‘Like’ but just doing this is useless compared to actually Signing the Petition, which is deeply important and necessary. Please give what this article is saying, and Signing the Petition, a careful thought (Figure 2). The future of everyone’s Joyful and Successful life depends on the support it is deeply given. Now the future of each of your lives ‘Health’ and ‘Happiness’ is your choice. If you’d like a look at lots of my other better than average Psychological intelligence please feel free to via the website index shown above look at the ‘emotion’ section–some-times needing to press ‘Click Here’ for access. Or via the ‘poetry’ section merely press tab ‘My Emotion Website’ for immediate access.

Figure 2.

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