Chapter 11
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Presentation Transcript
Chapter 11 Age and Health Inequalities
Chapter Outline • The Structures of Aging and Health Care • Age Differentiation and Inequality • Explanations for Age Stratification • Health and Health Care • The U.S. Health Care System
Status of Young People • People under age 18 are assumed to be too immature to make appropriate life decisions. • Rate of teen unemployment is very high. • Disproportionately represented in crime and accident statistics.
Status of People 65 and Older • People are living longer and, on the whole, remaining healthy as they age. • Many will suffer loss of income as they age especially if they are single women or in a minority group. • Discrimination in hiring and employment based solely on age is not legal, but it happens.
Status of People 65 and Older • Older people are more likely to vote and some groups represent the concerns of older people. • Ageist stereotypes can harm the elderly. • Social integration tends to decline as we age.
Theories of Age Stratification • Structural Functional - Older people disengage for good of self and society. • Conflict - older people are excluded so that senior positions open up for younger adults. • Modernization - status of older people has decreased because traditional bases of power have eroded.
Modernization Theory Reasons older people have low status in modern societies: • The accelerating pace of technological change favors the young. • Declining importance of tradition-based resources—such as land. • Their relatively low productivity.
Gender and Health • Women live longer than men, but report more health problems. • Men are more likely to die at a younger age in spite of their good health.
Social Factors and Male Health • The male role encourages risk talking that can end in accidents. • Men are less inclined to take care of their health than are women. • Men are more likely to die of stress-related diseases like heart attack and stroke.
Social Class and Health • The higher one’s social class, the longer one’s life expectancy and the better one’s health. • Environmental, economic, and psychosocial factors appear to play the largest part in class advantage regarding health.
Race and Health • When researchers control for income, minorities face obstacles to maintaining good health because they are minorities. • African Americans are 3 times as likely as Whites to be without health insurance. • Language barriers separate Hispanics from health care.
Physicians’ Income and Prestige • Structural-functional - high rewards are commensurate with talent and training. • Conflict perspective - the medical profession reflects the interests of the elite classes. • The AMA is a powerful lobby in supporting independent physicians fee-for-services payments.
Changing Status of Physicians Reflects several social and economic forces. • Group practices are more common. • Public has grown increasingly critical of physicians. • Fees and treatments are increasingly regulated by insurance companies and government agencies.
Nurses • Ongoing struggle between doctors and nurses reflects gender conflicts in society at large. • Nurses have increasingly pushed for higher educational standards for nurses. • More women have decided to become doctors.
Medical Care: Who Pays? • Americans paid an average $340 per person to doctors and hospitals in 1970. • By 1998 that figure had risen to $2,115 per person.
Who Pays the Bills? • Private insurance covers about 70 % of Americans today. • Government programs include Medicare for people over 65 and Medicaid for the economically disadvantaged. • The uninsured in America make up about 16% of the population.
