Neontocracy

Quick meaning: Neontocracy is a noun meaning (anthropology) Any society in which young children are highly valued (despite their relatively low social utility in objective terms); the practice, prevalent in the West, of so valuing young children.

Meaning

(anthropology) Any society in which young children are highly valued (despite their relatively low social utility in objective terms); the practice, prevalent in the West, of so valuing young children.

Example Sentences

And, incrementally, the gerontocracy becomes a neontocracy. But I would argue that the neontocracy has, lately, gotten out of control.

But looking at the neontocracy from up, down, and sideways—that is, cross-culturally, historically, and holistically—leads quickly to the realization that in many cases, institutional attention to families benefits the institutions themselves more than it aids families.

David F. Lancy (2015) argues in his book The Anthropology of Childhood that the ‘neontocracy’ of many modern Western societies is anomalous when compared with the majority of cultures across the world and across known human history.[…]There is less sense [in some gerontocratic contexts] than in neontocracies that children are to be protected, sheltered from work or considered non-economically productive.

Word Forms

• neontocracies

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include neoteinia, neossology, neontologist, neotology, neotenia, aetonormativity.

Related Dictionary Tools