Jill Quadagno's groundbreaking text is the first to take a life course perspective, which examines the relationship between the quality of one's life in old age and one¿s experiences, earlier choices, opportunities, and constraints. (Note especially Chapter 8, "Adult Development and Life Course Transitions".) The text gives students a broad background for understanding current policy debates through a distinctive chapter entitled "Old Age and the Welfare State," and through boxed essays in every chapter called "An Issue for Public Policy." The text integrates coverage of topics and issues pertaining to race, class, gender, and culture.

Jill Quadagno is the Mildred and Claude Pepper Eminent Scholar Chair in Social Gerontology at Florida State University. She earned her B.A from Pennsylvania State University, her M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, and her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Dr. Quadagno is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, and is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Section on Aging of the American Sociological Association, the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. In 1994, she served as Senior Policy Advisor in the President's Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. She is the author of numerous books on aging and social policy issues, and is presently serving as President of the American Sociological Society for 1997-1998.