ABSTRACT
Beyond each individual’s attitudes toward aging, the language used in intergenerational interaction, and the intergenerational relationship factors that frame intergenerational communication, consistency and change in macrosocietal issues impact on the communication that transpires between generations. We, as individuals, often have no choice but to interact with one another in a world with existing parameters or barriers constructed by the institutional rules and regimes with which we work. Economic, political, and other institutional factors may seem beyond our individual or relational control. For example, the decisions made by politicians to differentiate one age group from another, a housing community that discriminates on the basis of age, a mandatory retirement age, segregating younger and older workers from each other, or a state that must choose between spending public money on education for the young or long-term care for the elderly. As discussed in chapter 1, social institutions provide a series of constraints and enablements with which people actively work to create and sustain social structure.
