Ageing as Future (AaF)

Third party funded individual grant


Acronym: AaF

Start date : 01.10.2012

End date : 31.10.2017

Extension date: 31.12.2023

Website: http://www.geronto.fau.de/forschung/alternsbilder/ageing-future/


Project details

Short description

How do people of different ages perceive their future on the background of demographic change? How are societal conditions and expectations regarding societal change related to those perceptions? How do such expectations and perceptions influence attitudes towards lifestyle in and provision making for old age? How do people in the post-employment phase organize their time that is less structured by external constraints? And how do they reflect and organize their remaining lifetime?

Those are some of the questions that are investigated in the interdisciplinary and international project "Ageing as future". The project combines sociological and psychological expertise in Jena, Erlangen, Hongkong and the USA. We approach the research questions by combining different methodological strategies: Qualitative interviews, experiments, as well as online- and paper-pencil questionnaire studies are conducted cross-sectionally and longitudinally. A cross-cultural comparison and the variety of methods combined allow for a new an differentiated perspective on views on aging, age-related time management and provision making - and thus on aging as a future project and projection of people in highly developed, postindustrial, and aging societies.

Scientific Abstract

Die multimethodische Studie untersucht in Zusammenarbeit mit Kooperationspartnern in Deutschland, Hongkong und den USA mithilfe qualitativer und quantitativer Methoden der Psychologie und Soziologie die für das alternsbezogene Zukunftshandeln relevanten Dimensionen der Altersbilder, der Zeitgestaltung und des Vorsorgehandelns. Im Zentrum der Analyse stehen mögliche Zusammenhänge und Wechselwirkungen zwischen der gesellschaftlichen Ebene sich wandelnder Alters- und Zeitstrukturen und der individuellen Ebene handlungsleitender Vorstellungen, Deutungsmuster und Orientierungen. Der vergleichende Fokus auf unterschiedliche institutionelle und kulturelle Rahmenbedingungen individuellen Alterns soll es ermöglichen, die auf den deutschen Fall bezogenen Daten und Befunde methodisch abzusichern und interpretativ in den Kontext der erwartbaren Spannbreite zukunftsbezogenen Alternshandelns in hochentwickelten, postindustriellen Gesellschaften zu stellen.

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