Working Title: Disability and Old age as constructed by Medicare Policy: Similarities and tensions
By: Liat Ben-Moshe, PhD student
Sociology department, Maxwell school, Syracuse University
How does policy construct social categories and differentiate among groups? What comparisons can be made between different marginalized identities? What do different categories of oppression have in common and how are they discursively dissimilar? This paper will deal with two such categories- Disability and Old age.
Both Disability and old age can be seen as socially constructed. Old age can be seen as culturally arbitrary category, in which certain institutions transcribe a cut off point by which adulthood ends and old age begins. Similar argument can be found in the social model of disability. Disability is not seen as an objective categorization inherent in people’s bodies, but that who gets defined as disabled is culturally determined.
Also, each category (disability, old age) was historically produced, in western societies, by the onset of the capitalist mode of production. PWD and the elderly are viewed as 'a problem' from an economic perspective, because of the perceived lack of participation in the labor force. Also, both identities are regarded as the ‘Other’ based on specific assumptions about what constitutes dependence. The perceived dependence of both people with disabilities and the elderly is sustained by an industry of health care professionals and human services.
Disability and old age have much in common, as constructed categories but those connections have yet to be fully conceptualized. This paper attempts at analyzing the basic assumptions that are made about these categories, and the way they are shaped and constructed through social policy. The language of Medicare policy is used as a case study that exposes societal attitudes about disability and aging as distinct categories.