Sociology Professor Jessica Kelley is the Volume Editor for the recently released Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics: Economic Inequality in Later Life. The volume also contains work from other professors and graduate students in the CWRU Department of Sociology.
This volume explores the current state of economic inequality in later life, and the forces that are creating an ever-widening economic gap for each successive cohort. Today, one in four new bankruptcy filings are among adults ages 65 or older. The inability to ever stop working challenges the ideological assumptions about retirement. Further, the forces that have fueled this rising inequality has also served to segregate particular social groups into the poorest strata. Women, race/ethnic minorities, and rural older adults are especially vulnerable. The consequences of this economic inequality are acutely evident in disparities to access to quality long term care, greater burden of mental and physical illness among the poorest older adults, and even shaping how one experiences end of life. This volume features contributions from sociologists and economists such as: Christopher Phillipson, Debby Carr, Ronald Angel, and Katherine Newman. CWRU sociologists Professor Dannefer, Marissa Gilbert, and Chenming Han contribute a chapter on the role of systemic racism in wealth-building policies developed across the 20thcentury.
Congratulations to Professor Kelley and all who had their work featured!