Societal literacy and the status of the aged

The hypothesis that status of the aged is negatively related to societal literacy is tested on a sample of 122 cultures drawn from the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample and the Human Relations Area Files. The hypothesis is not supported; instead, a small positive relationship is observed. This relationship, however, appears to be spurious due to the effects of variables indexing social complexity, which are positively related to status of the aged for societies of the kind represented in this sample. The conclusions of this study are: (1) societal literacy has no independent effect on status of the aged; and (2) the overall relationship between societal complexity and status of the aged appears to be curvilinear. Both of those conclusions are contrary to existing theory.