Ageism, Sex, and Age: A Factorial Survey Approach

Abstract

In the field of social gerontology, some evidence exists to support Cowgill's theory that modernization leads to a decline in the status of the old. However, all of the evidence to date consists of objective indices of status such as education or income. The study reported here uses the factorial survey approach to directly measure the perceived status of various ages, and of both males and females. The results indicate that there is in fact an inverted U-curve of status across the life span, and that the perceived status of females is lower than that of males in the midlife period. There were a few minor variations in the status ratings due to sex, age, and the type of question asked. Females rated middle aged males slightly higher in status that did males, and older respondents rated the very young and the very old higher than did younger respondents. The most significant factor affecting the status ratings was age, but since the oldest respondent was only 35, this study must be replicated with older samples.