ABSTRACT
Peter Laslett introduced the idea of “the third age” into social gerontology during the mid-1980s (Laslett, 1987; 1989). Since then, it has become a pivotal concept in debates concerning the social and cultural nature of later life in contemporary Western society (Gilleard and Higgs, 2000; Weiss and Bass, 2002; Biggs, 2005). It remains, however, a term open to different interpretations and any definition of the third age implies its ontology. We propose that rather than treating it as a “new stage of life,” as Laslett (1987) did, or dismissing it as a short-hand term for the well-off elderly, as Bury (1998) and Blaikie (2002) have, the third age can be better conceptualized as a cultural field (in Bourdieu’s sense of the term) shaped by later life consumption patterns, in which particular actors from particular cohorts participate more heavily than others. The nature and forms of that participation and the differing third age “lifestyles” they support extend and expand the nature and form of the field itself. This is the core premise that this chapter will explore.
