(Un)doing Age? Resisting Age Categorization through Working Post-retirement

• In Event: 349 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Section on Aging and the Life Course Roundtables. Table 01. Ageism and Resistance

Abstract

Recently West and Zimmerman’s classic work on “doing gender” (1987) has been extended to age categorization by Jennifer Utrata (2011). Theorizing on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork involving Russian grandmothers, Utrata contends that individuals are compelled to “do age,” and, more specifically, “do gendered age.” We consider the precision of the analogy between “doing gender” and “doing age” using a Russian longitudinal qualitative data set. Analyzing the interviews with the pensioners in our data (n=34), we focus on post-retirement employment. Over 70% of our sample of pensioners were employed (n=24), and analysis of their justifications for working suggest that avoiding age categorization is a major motivation. According to the theory of “doing age,” such attempts to evade categorization should attract social censure, but our respondents seem only to gain from their employment. Working appears to be an (at least partially effective) means of avoiding the diminished status, social marginalization, constraining expectations and negative stereotyping that can come with age categorization as a “pensioner” in Russia. Our analysis suggests that individuals have more latitude to resist age as opposed to sex categorization.

Author

• Sarah Ashwin, London School of Economics and Political Science