Sociology - Ch 13

An older woman retires and completely changes her life. She is no longer raising children or working. However, she joins the YWCA to swim every day. She serves on the Friends of the Library board. She is part of a neighborhood group that plays Bunco on Saturday nights. Her situation most closely illustrates the ______ theory.

A. Activity

What is the approximate median age of the United States?

C. Thirty-seven

What is the primary driver of modernization theory?

A. Industrialization

If elderly people suffer abuse, it is most often perpetrated by ______.

B. Caregivers

Veterans are two to four times more likely to ______ as people who did not serve in the military.

B. Commit suicide

Today in the United States the poverty rate of the elderly is ______.

B. Increasing

In most countries, elderly women ______ than elderly men.

B. Live a few years longer

The measure that compares the number of men to women in a population is ______.

B. Sex ratio

Which action reflects ageism?

B. Speaking slowly and loudly when talking to someone over age sixty-five years old

Which factor most increases the risk of an elderly person suffering mistreatment?

C. Being frail to the point of dependency on care

Thanatology is the study of _____.

C. Death and dying

An older man retires from his job, stops golfing, and cancels his newspaper subscription. After his wife dies, he lives alone, loses touch with his children, and stops seeing old friends. His situation most closely illustrates the _______ theory.

C. Disengagement

Who wrote the book On Death and Dying, outlining the five stages of grief?

C. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

America's baby boomer generation has contributed to all of the following except:

C. Medicaid being in danger of going bankrupt

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act counteracts which theory?

D. Age stratification

Which assertion about aging in men would be made by a sociologist following the functionalist perspective?

D. Men who remain active after retirement play supportive community roles.

For individual people of a certain culture, the life course is ________.

D. The typical sequence of events in their lives

In the United States, life expectancy rates in recent decades have ______.

A. Continued to gradually rise

In Erik Erikson's developmental stages of life, with which challenge must older people struggle?

A. Overcoming despair to achieve integrity

The "graying of the United States" refers to ________.

A. The increasing percentage of the population over sixty-five years old