Role Expectations and Role Strain of the Elderly from the Perspective of Intergenerational Dynamics

Paper presented in 7^th International Congress on Geriatric Care

12^th to 14^th November 2010

Venue: India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi

Roles are certain positions in a group that are governed by rules and expectations.  In a family parent have certain roles, siblings had other roles and grandparents have still other roles.  In everyday life a fascinating interplay occurs between us and the people around us.  Enactment of roles for three generations i.e. young adult, parents and grandparents involves different sets of behavior and expectations.  Some roles are ascribed.  Ascribed roles are not much under personal control (male, female, sibling, parent, and grandparent) of a person.  Achieved roles are voluntarily attained by special efforts, such as spouse, teacher, scientist or doctor.  Roles streamline daily interactions by allowing anticipating what others will do.  For example, when a person is acting as a doctor, grandparent, parent, and police officer we expect certain type of behaviors from them.  People experience role-conflict in which two or more roles make conflicting demands on them.  Intergenerational relationships are interactions between individuals of different cohorts or generations (Bengston, 1982).  Gillon in discussing multigenerational families define “generation” as “cohorts of thousands of people who will share similar but not identical experiences because they are born live and die within a common historical period.”  Social support conceptualized as structural, functional, appraisal and normative components of supportive relationships (Antonucci, 1990, Oxman & Hull, 1997) has been linked with the wellbeing of elderly.

            Strong intergenerational relations contribute to the development of positive attitudes towards old age and help in combating stereotypes that promotes ageism and developing a more realistic outlooks towards ones own ageing process (Chadha & Mongia, 1997).  Important and valuable unique experiences are transmitted across generations through interaction among them.  Emotional glue binds the family as a happier unit.

            Young adults are a crucial link for fulfillment of expectations of both the preceding generations of parents and grandparents (Langer, 1990).  Older adults who are involved in intergenerational activities feel happier than older adults who do not share their feelings (Carlson Seeman & Fried, 2000; Glass, 2003).  Few studies also suggest that increased cognitive and social activity through intergenerational programme may help improve health for an ageing population and improve educational learning for children (Rebok et al., 2004).

            Role expectations and fulfillment are reciprocally related and enacted between a grandparent and young adult and between a parent and young adult.  The extent of trust, interpersonal sharing and emotional sharing between young adult, parents and grandparents provides an indicator of the degree of presence or absence of role strain.  Contextual variables of urban life, migrant population joint family / nuclear family, value-system, life-style change due to globalization, religious activities, gender, changes in family as an institution results in behavioral manifestations of gap between expectations and fulfillments across three generations.  The well-being equilibrium of each generation is affected by this gap but major affect of this process is felt by the grandparents/elderly generation.  Gerontologists like Prof. N.K. Chadha and works by Prof. S.C. Dube, Prof. T. Saraswathi, Shalini Bharat Janak Pandey is occupies significance in Indian context but major research work portraying the impact of inter-generational relations in the elderly has been paid only peripheral attention.

            The expansion of cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Calcutta came about with large number of people coming to cities in search of jobs, lack of opportunities, lack of infrastructure and law and order facilities in the rural areas.  The development of modern cities with its apparent advantages and attraction of cities had enormous impact not only on habits and modes of behavior but on patterns of thought and feeling.  As cities mushroomed in size for many it became an opportunity to maximize opportunities for economic and comfortable existence while others at the periphery continued to be marginalized in this race of in equal progress.  Health services, educational qualities, employment patterns, poor housing facilities, vote-bank politics and lack of government resources could not establish harmony among divergent cultures living together in a city.  Greater community cohesion essential to establish a common sense of identity could not be achieved.  Disadvantaged groups continued to live in alienation and resulted in further social exclusion.  Megacities offer expensive housing, high flow of production and finance but the concept of inter-community cohesion and ideal neighborhoods was at the receiving end in this process.  That is primarily the reason that a city like Mumbai which is financial capital of India also inhabits Asia’s largest slum at Dharavi.

            Many urban areas that have developed are over-crowded and under-resourced and existing resources are crumbling to meet the demands of sensitive social and health care.  It is no wonder that even in a city like Delhi many patients die due to vehicular congestion delays and doctors invest more time in commuting rather than attending and rendering quality attention to their patients.  This poses a double edged and contradictory picture of urbanization which on the one hand allows for certain opportunities but at the same time weakens the coherence of places, people, traditions and cultural networks.  Such centralized centre of economic growth has good place for productive competitive young work-force but it is also marginalizing the elders and underprivileged in an undefined fashion.  Everyone struggling to survive has less time to care for the elders and flexibility of our elders to move, interact and express their interests and concerns are compromised.  The American sociologist Talcott Parson’s (1960) argued that society needs to find roles for older consistent with advanced age.  Age-stratification theory looks at the role and influence of social structures, such as retirement policy, on the process of individual ageing and on the wider stratification of older people in society, one important aspect of age stratification theory is the concept of structural lag (Riley et al., 1994).  This provides an account of how structures do not keep pace with changes in the population and in individual’s lives.  Life course model considers ageing as a process from birth to death rather than a distinct stage.  This theory bridges micro and macro sociology in examining the relationships between psychological states social structures and social processes (Elder, 1974).

            Political economy perspective advocated by Estes et al. (2003) focuses on the role of economic and political systems as contributory factors of domination and marginalization of older people.  I do not intend to offer a comparison between families of today and families of the past.  There are lots of diversity across different societies in India from matrilineal, matrilineal joint family, nuclear family, neo-local (married couple moving into a dwelling away from both their families), live in relationships and so on.  But the core functions of a family has been structured around three central elements patriarchy, marriage and non-marriage in the regulation of sexual behavior and fertility and birth control measures in the production of demographic trends.  Despite many changes monogamy is still the most prevalent mode in India.  The orthodoxy of women as housewives, lack of education among girls and stereotype of women in natural domestic role have changed a lot and this has resulted in the development of plurality of norms in the family and society.  But the biggest challenge families are facing today is towards greater emphasis on nuclear and individual well-being concerns.  A higher rate of divorce, remarriage, teenager abortions and continuation of communication across generations has gone significantly down.  I appreciate equal opportunity for girls and boys becoming a cultural aspect of responsible parenting but getting disconnected to wisdom and maturity of our own grandparents can’t be an alibi of modern outlook.  We must try to recover a moral sense that does not breed antagonisms of interests across generations.  A return to the traditional family system seems to be a remote possibility because of lots of social changes but the value system that brings emotional communication in the family needs to be encouraged.  The development of science and matters of faith need not be contrary and a rationalist perspective can provide a coherent harmony across generations that transcend the debate of deepening modernity and traditions competing with each other.  Alienation of elders from day to day business to major aspects of decision-making has led to the rise of values which lacks humility and cohesion across generations.  The lack of interaction across three generations and various life style changes are also posing conflict of role expectations hence role strain to the older generation.  Young people growing up in an information age develop a growing sense of distance and constraint to share their feelings with the elder generation.  Continual discussion among grandparents, parents and grandchildren on issues of practical importance is on the decline.  It is pertinent to mention here the role of media in opinion making.  On average a teenager, is devoting much of time in watching television, doing internet which ultimately governs their attitude although they don’t admit it as part of attributional error.  Imitation is the direct mechanical reproduction of behavior.  Identification is a particular form of imitation in which copying a model generalized beyond specific acts, springs from wanting to be and trying to be like the model with respect to some broader quality (White, 1972, p. 252).

            The phenomenal growth of television channels, mobile telephony and internet has profound impact on our socio-cultural foundations.  More and more urban youth spent much of their leisure time with these technological gadgets have completely changed the cultural landscape.  While there is no sufficient data available linking the behavior pattern of teenagers and their dependence on technological gadgets but one can’t deny the changing shift of major time spent from traditional recreational activities to technocracy activities.  Young people are being more and more socialized away from parents, grandparents and the wife neighborhood.  Massive orchestration of communication through these technological gadgets involve transmission of information or ideas that might be right or wrong which discourage reflective thought and difficult to accommodate with our existing culture.  Belief in the miracle of market, the connection between wealth and happiness is hyped too much and concern about damages to our intergenerational well-being is excluded from the debate.  The corporate take over of public expression is so strong that alternative views are easily repudiated as conservative and less progressive.

            In a media dominated age meanings are created by flow of images and our world has become a sort of make-believe in which people are responding to media images rather than real persons or places.  The distinction between reality and scurrility gets blurred heavy outpourings of media images print, electronics and all of a sudden non-serious issues become a primary concern for all of us. 

            Recent IPL matches, commonwealth games gripped the mass-psyche and withdrawn our attention from the issues of real concern.  Our sense of self and sensitivity is in a state of transition and nightmare of seeing our machines taking control of our world we no longer have control for our social lives.  Trust within the family and outside family is lacking and uncertainties in relationships are on the ascendant.  The relationships founded on mutual respect, tolerance is lacking and everyday life is breaking free from the hold of tradition and custom without offering any good alternatives.  With the development of new technologies many obvious benefits come to us but many forms of manufactured risks such as enormous growth in vehicular traffic leading to pollution, genetically modified crops and its health consequences can’t be ignored.  If are simply concerns the transition from unmarried to married life several propositions have come into existence which does not offer any permanence in relationships.  Today many teenagers risk health problems, adopting relationships of living together without getting married, indulging in relationships that is based on temporary external attractions and likelihood of gaining external attractions and likelihood of gaining happiness and security has become more uncertain.  In a study of 200 samples of young generation of Delhi which analyzed the data from quantitative and qualitative methods several factors emerged as significant factors contributing the gap across inter-generational relationships.  This study by the researcher revealed factors of gender, interaction among family members, nuclear family/joint family dynamics as important contributing to the gap between expectations and fulfillment.  Other factors of religious habits, respect to elders, career pressure, economic pressure to perform, changes in the life-style lack of support from institutions of care-giving such as schools, government and many other factors were ascertained with the use of a questionnaire.  With the deliberations in this academic seminar academicians and researchers can throw light on new areas which can help us understand the dynamics of intergenerational relationship and its impact on elderly.