Sociological functionalism, exchange theory and life-cycle analysis: a call for more explicit theoretical bridges

There has been a notable lack of articulation between mainstream sociological theory and the work of social gerontologists. This paper suggests four reasons for this, and reviews the basic assumptions and applications to gerontology of two well-established frameworks in sociological theory: structural-functionalism and exchange. With more rigorous and systematic integration of gerontological data with social and social psychological theory, more comprehensive explanations of life course phenomena would result. Moreover, the age variable would be considerably by other sociologists as less of a control and more of a relevant variable in its own right.