Lifestyle and Ageing

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper is concerned with the nature, usage and potential of the concept of lifestyle. It concentrates on usage in social gerontology and specifically on the way in which it has been used by three teams of American researchers. Its overall aim is to discover guidelines for establishing the lifestyle concept on a sounder methodological footing.The paper begins with a discussion of diversity within the elderly population and it identifies the need for a systematic conceptual scheme for describing the social life of the individual. It examines the relationship between lifestyle and social class and concludes that they represent complementary rather than competing approaches. The paper goes on to explore three definitions of life-style - as structure, content and meaning - and compares and contrasts these three alternative approaches. The difference between ‘nominal’ and ‘real’ definitions is discussed and the paper ends with a summary account of the way in which the concept has been operationalized in a continuing British study.