Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

There are different lifestyles which affect aging experience. Historically, there is an urban lifestyle which belongs to previous employees of governmental organizations. On the other hand, there is an old traditional lifestyle which called “Ashayeri” - from tribal life. These individuals move around nature in different seasons of the year and grow livestock. They supply their needs from nature. Our question is what differences are between the aging experiences of these two lifestyles? We operated in-depth interviews with the aged in these two lifestyles. We asked about social supports from family and the government, the situation of health, and access to health care and their current wealth. We obtained the saturation in the twelfth interview with urban cases and the tenth interview with tribal cases but we continued both area cases to the twentieth case interview. The urban cases were from Tehran and the tribal cases were from Qashqai tribe. The lifestyle totally impresses the aging experience. The urban aging suffers loneliness because they have one to three children. It is common for their children to leave them because of migration from Iran. Also, they have problems with accessing governmental support. Their pensions are mostly delayed. Life in tribal eventuates high family support and more healthy bodies because of organic foods and mobility in nature. Although aging in tribal does not contain pension the ages of tribal possesses all family’s wealth such as gold and livestock. Modifying cultural and political elements in lifestyles can lead to improved aging.