Elderly Iranians and a Transforming World: Modernization, Individualization, and Aging in the Islamic Republic

Older Iranians are facing a transforming world. Extended family bonds are diminishing in strength, and the marital relationship and nuclear family are becoming more important. Social and geographical mobility are increasing. Children cost more money, time, and effort to raise in today's world. Young people are becoming more educated, finding new types of work, and gaining independence from their parents and relatives. Cultural change is taking place at a rapid pace. Young people watch satellite TV from all over the world, communicate with email, converse with friends on their mobile phones, play computer games, and take on new behaviors, values, interests, and life styles. Materialism is rife. At present, fine new homes, stylish clothes, fancy cars, and extravagant weddings and gatherings are possible for a larger proportion of the population and are highly desired. All of these changes tend to take children and grandchildren away from elderly parents, I found during my recent research trip to Iran.

Many of the same challenges which my students and I have found to face elderly Iranians who live in California now are also facing older people living in the Iranian village of Aliabad. Although the Aliabad elderly have not emigrated, as have the Iranian elderly in California, culture and society are changing around them. Life is becoming more rushed, complicated, expensive, and demanding, even in Aliabad. To study issues of aging and the elderly in the Iranian village of Aliabad, I left for Iran in December, returning three months later. Obtaining a visa took quite a few months of effort. However, once in Iran, I was able to extend my visa a month at a time. During 18 months in 1978 and 1979, for my dissertation, I had conducted my anthropological fieldwork research in the same village. Thus, I was able to compare the situation of the elderly in 1978 and 1979 with their conditions and lives on my trips to Iran during summer of 2003, summer of 2004, and December 2005 to March 2006. During my 25 year absence from Aliabad, dramatic socio-economic transformation had taken place. Aliabad had changed from a walled village of some 3,000 inhabitants living in traditional lives. Sons, upon marrying, brought their very young brides to a room in their father's courtyard. Most families lived in rooms in mudbrick courtyards. They wore regional dress, baked their own bread, bore many children, and enjoyed little change in their routines other than weddings and funerals, trips to the cemetery, and visits with relatives. As sons brought their wives home to their parents, someone was always available to live close to elderly parents. On the whole, older parents enjoyed respect and obedience from their children. They taught their children the necessary skills for their lives, child rearing, house keeping, animal care, and cooking and baking for females, and agriculture and trading, and shop keeping for males. Elderly parents lived in the midst of their children and grandchildren, sharing their lives on an intimate basis. Younger family and relatives surrounded the elderly. Now Aliabad's wall has been taken down, and not many people live in the old village area. People have built new streets lined with courtyard walls and urban style fired brick homes. Women have modern kitchens, freezer and fridge, shower rooms at home, natural gas stoves or wall furnaces for heat in winter, vacuum cleaners, phones, washing machines, and telephone taxis or family cars to take them even for short distances. They do not bake bread or tend animals. Young women get a high school diploma at the least, and may attend university or training courses. They marry much later, postpone having children, bear only one or two children, and generally refuse to live with their mother-in-law even for a short period. They expect a completely furnished nuclear family house to be ready for them upon marriage. The village population has increased to some 7,000. Only a small handful of men are still engaged with raising sheep and goats or with agriculture. Rather, they run almost every type of business imaginable in the village, or go into Shiraz to work in services or shops. In the village, one can purchase anything necessary for building, homes, or life necessities. With all of this modernization, individualization, and globalization, the elderly, who grew up in a drastically different world, often feels out of place, ignored, isolated, and out of the mainstream of social life. Many couples and widows now live alone in their own homes as their children have moved into their own separate homes with their spouses and children. They are busy with their own lives, with the complicated processes of raising their children, and trying to prepare them for life in this changed world. They must now buy nice clothes for their children, equip them with toys and a computer, set aside a room for them, and take them to English and computer classes from a very young age. Children gain priority over parents. Resources go for one's own home, spouse, children and possessions, and often do not stretch also to care for elderly parents. Thus, a main research aim is to understand how the elderly try to cope with these lives, which are very different from what they would have expected. During this period, I lived in Aliabad and in nearby Shiraz with old friends from my dissertation research experience. I spent my time in participant observation, discussions, and interviewing people about the lives of the elderly and how they have changed due to social, cultural, economic, and political transformations over the last 27 years. I was able to interact with, and interview, many elderly people and also others about elderly. I found that being with older people one on one was a good way of collecting less self-censored statements and views. I asked older people to compare advantages and disadvantages for elderly of life 27 years ago with the present. I observed how elderly people interact with others such as family, relatives, and neighbors. I observed elderly at gatherings and rituals. I continued to collect a list of the elderly people in Aliabad and those who have moved to Shiraz. Through living and interacting in Iran for three months, I was able to make a great deal of progress on my study of the elderly in Iran. My visit coincided with the return of “hajjis” from Mecca, many burial and memorial gatherings, and Moharram, the month of mourning. These events and religious rituals also became a significant part of my research. From them, I was able to compare religious rituals and activities, and the role of older versus younger and male versus female at present with my earlier visit 27 years ago. Fewer demands on women's time, literacy, education, greater availability of financial resources, and more freedom to go out of the house have enabled Aliabad women to become much more active and even to take leadership roles. Just as I had found in research among Iranian emigrant women in California, new conditions in Aliabad have allowed women to participate in religious activities in new ways. This research was also crucial to my plans of writing a book based on my dissertation, which focused on the Shi'a mourning complex in the Iranian Revolution. A related area of research was how females viewed their experiences in education, the place of education in women's lives, and the position of women in society. I interviewed females of various ages about their education and views about female education. This research is significant to my research about the elderly, as the place of young women and their level of autonomy is very closely related to the situation of the elderly and transformation during modernization.

Another endeavor was to talk about experts on village history. As often these were older people, I learned not only about village history and their views of changes, but also about their own histories and lives as older people. During these three months of research, my previous experience in Aliabad was crucial. With the help of friends and their children, I was able to take optimal advantage of my time. Often, I was busy talking with others from morning until late night. I was able to widen my circle of interaction among more people. Level of cooperation and willingness to assist was very high. With warm hospitality, Aliabad people welcomed me and assisted me with my research. Because of my previous stay in Aliabad in 1978-1979 and the bonds which developed during this period, I was able to start conducting research immediately upon arrival and then continue to widen my circle of associates, moving from my old friends out to their children, friends, relatives, and neighbors. I owe much to the generous friendship of these long-time friends.