Beyond the “haves” and “have nots”

Gerontologists increasingly recognize that diversity among older people is as important as “normal aging.” Yet diversity often represents social inequality and its effects. Inequality among age peers increases over the life course in each succeeding cohort, resulting in part from inequality-generating social processes of cumulative dis/advantage. This article describes social mechanisms at the macro, meso, and micro levels of social systems that generate inequality and amplify its effects over the life course. It also considers how these processes interact with social change, and how policy interventions perhaps ameliorate them.