Aging well, Aging “right”?
A critique of dominant models

Throughout the twentieth century, attempts to understand the process of aging have produced a range of interpretive theories, each shaped by its cultural context and worldview. These are not merely scientific explanations: they are ways in which societies imagine old age and assign a place to older people within the social order.

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One of the earliest influential models in sociology is the Disengagement Theory (Cumming & Henry, 1961). According to this view, aging is a natural process in which individuals gradually withdraw from social life, as though old age were a slow preparation for death. While this theory helped highlight the relational and systemic dimension of aging, it also contributed to normalizing exclusion: if the elderly are “supposed” to withdraw, then marginalizing them becomes socially acceptable, even logical.

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In contrast, the Activity Theory (Havighurst, Neugarten & Tobin, 1968) emerged with an almost opposite premise. Here, “successful” and healthy aging is associated with remaining active and socially engaged. The idea is that one ages well by continuing to do, to produce, to participate. Those who manage to replace lost social roles (such as work after retirement) with new meaningful activities are seen as aging more positively.

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However, this model risks placing on the aging body the same pressures that characterize adulthood: to remain functional, efficient, productive. Old age is no longer understood as a time for different rhythms or new forms of interiority, but as a challenge to performance.

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It is within this cultural environment that the theory of Successful Aging gained prominence in the 1990s, especially through the model proposed by Rowe and Kahn. According to this perspective, one “ages successfully” if one avoids disabling diseases, maintains high physical and cognitive functioning, and remains actively involved in society. While the model appears to promote well-being, it actually mirrors neoliberal ideals of autonomy, optimization, and self-management. Old age becomes acceptable only when it is efficient and self-sufficient. Those who cannot meet these standards—because of financial, social, or health constraints—are implicitly positioned as failures. Aging becomes a performance rather than a stage of life to be inhabited in its complexity.

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At the same time, a vast market grows around the idea of “aging well”: nutritional supplements, cognitive training programs, anti-aging medicine, wellness retreats, aesthetic treatments. Old age becomes not only a life stage but a consumer category, a field of profit and technological intervention.

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In this context, the theory of Productive Aging emerged in the United States (Butler; later Bass & Caro, 2001), shaped by concerns about the economic “burden” of an aging population. The proposed solution was to encourage older adults to continue contributing to society—not only through paid employment, but also through unpaid labor such as volunteer work, caregiving for relatives, and community involvement. The elderly are framed as valuable if they continue to “give” something.

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Yet this model excludes forms of activity that are personally meaningful but not socially quantifiable: spiritual practice, contemplation, slowness, inner work, simply being rather than doing. It privileges utility over depth, contribution over presence.

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In this light, aging increasingly appears not as a natural phase of life, but as a project to be managed and optimized. A task assigned to the individual: be autonomous, be active, be efficient, be useful.

But this raises important questions: What forms of aging are marginalized when old age must always be productive and efficient? And what new possibilities emerge if we recognize aging as a time of transformation, reflection, and slower relational attunement?