Retirement on the Line—Age, Work, and Value in an American Factory

Lynch (anthropology, Olin College, Needham, MA) examines how age is culturally constructed in the United States through a close, ethnographic study of Vita Needle, which employs elderly people. Divided into two parts, the study looks at how work processes and production create feelings of productivity, vitality, and community. Lynch also examines dynamics of exploitation in terms of labor flexibility and makes a case for "mutually advantageous exploitation." In the second part of the book she examines the media attention Vita Needle has received and how workers in turn feel about that. Lynch comes to generous conclusions about the nature of work and the meaning ascribed to it by workers under conditions that she admits would appear to some as exploitive, but also suggests that what her study reveals about work is noneconomic motives for doing it. Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)