Examining Rowe and Kahn's Concept of Successful Aging: Importance of Taking a Life Course Perspective

This article critiques Rowe and Kahn's conceptualization of successful aging using tenets of the life course perspective. A review and synthesis of the literature on successful aging and studies that use a life course perspective. We draw on life course principles that view development as a dynamic lifelong process, embedded in historical time and place, and influenced by the web of relationships individuals are linked to, as well as more distal social structural factors. This discussion questions the relatively static nature of Rowe and Kahn's successful aging model, its emphasis on personal control over one's later-life outcomes, and neglect of historical and cultural context, social relationships, and structural forces in influencing later-life functioning. Caution in using the model in its current formulation is needed, and we promote thinking about how successful aging can better align with micro- and macrolevel issues through utilization of a life course perspective.