Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences, Fourth Edition (Handbooks of Aging)

Each volume of the HANDBOOKS OF AGING Series represents one of the three main influences on aging: the Handbook of the Biology of Aging, Handbook of the Psychology of Aging, and Handbook of Aging andthe Social Sciences. Each of the Handbooks presents critical comprehensive reviews of research knowledge, theories, concepts, and issues by the foremost scholars in the field. Chapters are selected to portray discrete units of research study, long-standing areas of research, and new developments.

James E. Birren is currently Associate Director of the Center on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles, and serves as an adjunct professor in medicine, psychiatry, and biobehavioral sciences. He is also professor emeritus of gerontology and psychology at the University of Southern California. Dr. Birren's previous postions include service as Chief of the section on aging of the National Institute of Mental Health, founding Executive Director and Dean of the Ethel Percy Andrus Gerontology Center of USC, founding Director of the Anna and Harry Borun Center for Gerontological Research at UCLA, and President of the Gerontological Society of America, the Western Gerontological Society, and the Division on Adult Development and Aging of the American Psychological Association. Dr. Birren's many awards include the Brookdale Foundation Award for Gerontological Research, the Sandoz prize for Gerontological Research, and the award for outstanding contribution to gerontology by the Canadian Association of Gerontology. Author of over 250 scholarly publications, Dr. Birren has research interests including how speed of behavior changes with age, the causes and consequences of slowed information processing in the older nervous system, the effect of age on decision-making processes, and the role of expertise in skilled occupations. He has served as a delegate to several White House Conferences on Aging and continues to have a strong interest in developing national priorities for research and education related to issues of aging.

Robert H. Binstock has been Professor of Aging, Health, and Society at Case Western Reserve University since 1985, following two decades at Brandeis University. A former President of the Gerontological society of America (1975-1976), he has served as director of a White House Task Force on Older Americans (1967-1968) and as chairman and member of a number of advisory panels to the United States government, state and local governments, and foundations. He is presently Chairman of the Gerontological Health Section of the American Public Health Association. Professor Binstock is the author of more than 150 articles on the politics and policies affecting aging, and his 19 books include the three previous editions of the Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences, The Future of Long-Term Care: Social and Policy Issues (1996, and Dementia and Aging: Ethics, Values, and Policy Choices (1992). Among the honors he has received for contributions to geronotology and the well-being of older persons are the Kent and the Brookdale Awards from the Gerontological Society of America, the Key Award from the American Public Health Association, the American Society on Aging Award, and the Arthur S. Flemming Award from the national Association of State Units on Aging.

Linda K. George is Professor of Sociology at Duke University, where she also serves as Associate Director of the Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development. She is a former President of the Gerontological Society of America (1993-1994) and a member of the Executive Committee of the Aging Section of the American Sociological Society. She is former editor of the Journal of Gerontology, Social Sciences Section and is currently on the Editorial Boards of the American Sociological Review and the Journal of Aging and Health. Professor George is the author of more than 150 journal articles and book chapters. Her six books include Quality of Life Among Older Adults (1980) (co-authored by Lucille Bearon), which has been in print continuously for 15 years. She co-edited the Third Edition of the Handbook of Aging and the Social Sciences. Her major research interests include social factors and illness, stress and coping, and subjective well-being, all of which she examines primarily in the context of later life. Among the honors Professor George has received are Phi Betta Kappa, the Duke University Trinity College Distinguished Teaching Award, and the W. Fred Cottrell Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Aging. Professor George received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in Sociology from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Duke University and also completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in aging there.

James H. Schulz is Professor of Economics in the Florence Heller Graduate School at Brandeis University, holds the Meyer and Ida Kirstein Chair in Aging Policy, and is currently Director of the Ph.D. Program. He is on the Board of Directors of four mutual funds sponsored by the American Association of Retired Persons and managed by the investment firm of Scudder, Stevens, and Clark, and is a consultant to the International Social Security Association, the United Nations, and the World Bank. Professor Schulz is a leading authority on pensions, retirement policy, and the economics of aging-authoring over 100 books, reports, and articles. His major books include Providing Adequate Retirement Income, Economics of Population Aging: The "Greying" of Australia, Japan and the United States, and The Economics of Aging, (just published in its sixth edition). He is a fellow and past president of the Gerontological Society of America and a founding fellow of the National Academy of Social Insurance. Among his awards is the 1983 Robert W. Kleemeier Award for outstanding research in aging.

George C. Myers is a professor of sociology at Duke University and founding director of its Center for Demographic Studies. Best known for his research in the field of the demography of aging, he has published widely on population aging, mortality trends, and changing family structures in both developed and developing societies. Professor Myers has been Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Gerontology, Editor of the Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences, and Chairman of the Publications Committee of The Gerontological Society of America. He has served on many government panels and advisory groups, including the Bureau of the Census Advisory Committee on Population Statistics, the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics, and the National Advisory Council on Aging of the National Institutes of Health. He chairs the Steering Committee for the World Health Organization's Determinants of Healthy Aging Project. His current research includes a comparative longitudinal study of aging in Australia and the United States and an Economic Commission for Europe cross-national study of the dynamics of population aging.

Victor W. Marshall is Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Toronto and Director of its Centre for Studies of Aging. He served from 1990 to 1995 as Network Director of CARNET, the Canadian Aging Research Network, a Canadian federally funded nationwide Network of Centres of Excellence. Professor Marshall is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and a founding member of the Canadian Association on Gerontology. He was Editor-in-Chief of The Canadian Journal on Aging for five years and is now on the Executive Board of the Encyclopedia of Gerontology and the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Aging and Health and Ageing and Society. More than 100 publications report his work from a broad social science perspective rooted in sociological training. His work has covered such diverse aspects of aging as the family, long-term care, public policy, and death and dying, but it currently focuses on social theory of aging, independence and aging, and aging in relation to work and the life course. He directs a large multidisciplinary research program in the latter area funded by the Canadian government.