Rethinking the Third Age In a Global Context: Social Generations, Culture and Later Life

The third age has become an influential concept for understanding later life in today’s aging societies, emphasizing the possibilities of autonomy, leisure participation, consumption practices, and self-realization after retirement. However, classical formulations of the third age have largely been developed from the experiences of Western consumer society and its welfare state. As population ageing becomes a global phenomenon, there is a need to reconsider how the third age is understood and experienced across diverse social, cultural, and historical contexts.

Older adults in different societies have lived through distinct processes of social transformation, including historical events shaping their social generational identities, welfare transitions, family changes, digital development, and the rise of consumer cultures. These experiences influence how different social generations understand ageing, identity, and the possibilities of a good later life.

This session welcomes contributions from diverse national and regional contexts that explore how social generations, cultural contexts, family relationships, consumption practices, digital technologies, and social change influence the formation and experience of the third age. Through cross-cultural and comparative perspectives, this session aims to develop a more contextualized and plural understanding of the third age, and thereby contribute to a broader, global sociology of later life.