CITIZENSHIP AND OLD-AGE - THE END OF THE ROAD

This paper is concerned with the interlinked issues of citizenship and the structured dependency of older people within Social Gerontology. It argues that implicit in much British Social Gerontology is a strate gy of advancing the wellbeing of elderly people through the extension of citizenship rights. Absence of these rights leads to poverty, exclu sion and ageism being commonplace experiences of large sections of the older population. This approach draws heavily on the ideas regarding social citizenship of T. H. Marshall who has influenced much mainstrea m social policy in Britain since 1945 Changes to the Welfare State sin ce 1979 have seriously questioned the validity of this approach and ma ny of these criticisms apply to the structured dependency approach. Re cent work on citizenship can help us to see how the relationship betwe en old age and citizenship has changed and how far theory in social ge rontology needs to change to take account of these new circumstances.