New Roles in Old Age

Abstract

The period of old age brings with it many health problems. In many cases, the individual
completely loses his autonomy, being necessary his care by the younger members of the family, more
or less permanent. The institutionalization of an old man attracts a faster degradation of his vital
functions and psyche. Because life plans are interdependent, the changes in one of them often affect all
the others. To the loss of the productive social role is added the loss of social prestige, of the authority
gained with efforts over the years, both in society and in the family. Retirement cannot be considered
as a moment of social aging, but as the beginning of an individually modified lifestyle, as a psychosocial
threshold for restructuring social roles, replacing the primary role in the pre-retirement period
with compensatory roles, by increasing the intensity of latent roles or the emergence of new ones.