Aging and Relationships Between Age Groups in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This theoretical essay examines the relationships between age groups in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, a period of high uncertainty. We integrate in a complementary fashion the contributions of sociocultural psychology and sociology, enabling a socio-historical-cultural analysis of discourses on older people across ecological layers and amidst a temporal tension between continuity and discontinuity. Empirically, we conclude from analyzing meme actions of greater control and supervision over older people that socially they have been reduced to a risk group and stigmatized, while the youngest were considered immune to COVID-19. We state that the addition of the health crisis to other crises and historical social inequalities amplified the existing problems. We also propose that the temporal continuity associated with the social notion of a risk group has reedited and deepened disputes between the youngest and the oldest, challenging intergenerational solidarity in Brazil.

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