Because older adults have had many more life experiences than young people, do you value the ...

In most nonliterate societies, older adults were respected and viewed as useful to their people to a much greater degree than is the case in our society. Prior to industrialization, older people were the primary owners of property. Land was the most important source of power; therefore, older adults controlled much of the economic and political power. Now people earn their living primarily in the job market. The vast majority of older adults own little land and are viewed as providing no salable labor.

In earlier societies, older adults were valued because of the knowledge they possessed. Their experiences enabled them to supervise planting and harvesting and to pass on knowledge about hunting, housing, and craft making. They also played key roles in preserving and transmitting the culture. But the rapid advances of science and technology have tended to limit the value of older people's knowledge; books and other memory-storing devices have rendered older adults less valuable as storehouses of culture and records. Children no longer learn their future profession or trade from their parents; instead, these skills are acquired through institutions, such as the school system. Industrialization and the growth of modern society have robbed older persons of high status.