TY - JOUR AU - Cagney, Kathleen PY - 2010/04/26 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - DEMOGRAPHY OF AGING AND THE LIFE COURSE JF - TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology JA - TRAILS VL - IS - SE - DO - UR - https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/demography-of-aging-and-the-life-course SP - AB - OverviewThis is a course in population aging and its social, economic and political ramifications. It will examine basic models of demographic and health transitions, trends in aging and health status, characteristics of medical care and long-term care, and the implications of these for the development of public policy. Emphasis will be placed on life course approaches to the study of aging. Specific topics include health, functional status, and well-being; socioeconomic status and inequality; family structure and living arrangements; formal and informal long-term care; early life predictors of health and longevity; generational equity; neighborhood social context. We will begin with micro-level considerations such as health and functional status. We then shift the unit of analysis to family formation and social networks. Finally, we close with neighborhood effects. We will use the City of Chicago as case study. We will examine the extent to which age, and aging neighborhoods, shape political and social forces in our community. To extend this theme, we will explore in depth the 1995 Chicago heat wave; we will pay particular attention to the roles that social isolation and neighborhood social context play in the lives of older adults. ER -