Component 2: age inequality, including the disadvantages faced by the young and the old in work, income and status, ageism, and the functionalist, Marxist, Weberian and interactionist explanations of age-based inequality.

What this dot point is asking

OCR Component 2 examines age as a source of inequality, affecting both the young and the old. You need the patterns of disadvantage (work, income, status), the concept of ageism, and the explanations (functionalist, Marxist, Weberian, interactionist), plus the debate about how significant age is compared with class, gender and ethnicity.

The answer

Patterns of age inequality

The young face low pay (lower minimum wages), insecure and precarious work, barriers to housing and reduced access to benefits. The old face age discrimination in employment, pensioner poverty, and a loss of status and power, often being stereotyped as dependent. Both experience inequality, but in different ways and at different life stages.

Theoretical explanations

• Functionalism (disengagement theory, Cummings and Henry): older people are encouraged to withdraw from social roles so that the young can take over, presenting age roles as functional for society rather than unjust.
• Marxism: both the young and the old serve as a flexible reserve army of labour, hired and fired as capitalism requires; Phillipson argues the old are devalued as economically redundant.
• Weberianism: both groups have a weak market situation (limited skills or excluded from work), which lowers their life chances.
• Interactionism (Victor): focuses on the negative stereotypes and labels attached to old age (frail, dependent, a burden), which shape how the elderly are treated and see themselves.

Is age a fundamental inequality?

The key debate is whether age is as significant as class, gender or ethnicity. Age inequality is partly a life-course phenomenon: everyone passes through youth and (usually) old age, so it differs from more fixed inequalities. Intersectional theorists argue age interacts with class, gender and ethnicity, so a poor older woman from a minority group faces compounded disadvantage.

Examples in context

A top essay shows age disadvantaging both the young and the old, weighs it against class, gender and ethnicity, and considers the life-course point before judging.

Try this

Q1. Outline two ways in which young people may experience inequality. [4 marks]

• What the marker wants. Two ways (AO1, two marks each): lower pay and insecure work, and barriers to housing or reduced benefits, each briefly developed.

Q2. Outline and explain two perspectives on age inequality. [10 marks]

• Cue. Two developed points: functionalist disengagement theory (Cummings and Henry) seeing age roles as functional, and the Marxist or Weberian view of the old as a devalued reserve army or weak market situation (Phillipson), each applied to an example.