In Memoriam: Bernice L. Neugarten

Abstract

Last summer, Bernice L. Neugarten died. She was a premier intellectual and professional leader in the field of gerontology (as well as in the fields of human development and psychology) throughout most of the second half of the 20th century. Her major contributions spanned a number of subject areas, including age as a dimension of social organization; social and psychological perspectives on the life course; and aging, personality, and adaptation (see, e.g., D. A. Neugarten 1996). In this venue, The Gerontologist, it is most fitting to note and pay tribute to Bernice's accomplishments in the area of social policy and aging. She was extraordinarily prescient and influential in this realm. Through her work on aging and age relations, she identified and set forth innovative concepts and concerns about policy that have shaped the agendas of leaders in both the worlds of ideas and action. The foundation for Bernice's intellectual leadership in the arena of social policy issues was expressed in a 1974 article entitled "Age Groups in American Society and the Rise of the Young-Old" (B. L. Neugarten 1974). In this seminal article she began to question the soundness of public policies that provide benefits and protection to older people primarily on the basis of old-age criteria, without much reference to considerable diversity in the economic status, health status, and other characteristics of the older population. She did so by presenting data that illustrated substantial aggregate differences between the characteristics of Americans aged 55–74, whom she termed the "young-old," and those aged 75 and older, the "old-old." As part of the title suggested—"the rise of the young-old"—she was trying to show that on the whole, people in their early 70s were much like those in their late 50s.

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