Cultural Effects On Older People

Communities can significantly impact older individuals and their experiences of aging. The manner in which older individuals are treated throughout the world is an excellent example of this. No one culture is the same, but they all have a unique way of impacting the aging individuals that are a part of them. These ways of acting and interacting with older adults are influenced by society’s beliefs towards these aging individuals in regards to isolation, which in reality, can be quite similar cross-culturally. The Jewish community in The Center, the Tuareg in Niger and Mali, and the New England older individuals each form their own communities to combat isolation in order to have a sense of belonging and importance.

In Number Our Days, Myerhoff

The majority of these employees at Vita Needle are of an older age, well over the retirement age of sixty or so, and are thus excluded from almost every other employment opportunity. These older individuals and their employers created this community partly in response to the isolation that they face from other individuals and employers. “The Vita Needle story illustrates the importance of mattering and membership for older adults in the United States, where older adults often feel socially marginalized and even invisible,” (Lynch, 2013: 188). These individuals have come together and have formed a community based on these shared experiences. The employers of Vita Needle also come together to make this community feel welcome. “The owners and managers are attuned to the age-related social, health, and economic needs of the workforce, and the company accommodates this workforce in various ways,” (Lynch, 2013: 190). This enhances their sense of self-worth, as many individuals feel as if they must be contributing to society in some way to be important. This could be partly due to the age cohort that they belong