Aging at 30,000 feet: the global reach of social gerontology.

1 I S it my imagination or are flight attendants getting older? Observational data based on many trips abroad, almost all in the service of gerontology, tell me that the answer is yes. However, an understanding of societal demographic transitions tells me another story, one of population aging writ small: fewer entry-level flight attendants in a contracting airline industry, increasing the proportion of veteran flight attendants on duty. These are the thoughts that enter my mind on long flights while I sift through PDFs of The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Social Sciences (JG:SS) submissions on my IPad. Welcome to high-altitude gerontology! Also on my mind both in the air and on the ground is the growing international presence of social gerontology and what that means for paper submissions to this flagship journal. Academic conferences and scientific collaborations, directly and indirectly related to social gerontology, now span the globe. The United States, and even more broadly the " West, " can no longer be said to have hegemony over knowledge building in this area of inquiry. As the premier journal of the field, JG:SS bears a serious responsibility to be a fair gatekeeper to international scientific publication, and, I would argue, is exceptionally well-positioned to promote multinational representation in the gerontological sciences. This is because social science has internationalism " in its bones. " Institutional arrangements, social structures, and cultural rhythms of societies form the very basis, the fundamental building blocks, of social gerontology. There is no subarea of the discipline of gerontology that is as well-suited to broaden its scientific base through international diversity. My impression is that the international presence in JG:SS is healthy and the number of international submissions is growing. To empirically satisfy my curiosity about the matter, I examined the percent of submissions, invited revisions , and publications from the various regions of the world between 2009 and 2011. I sought to answer four questions: From what areas of the world are submitted manuscripts originating? Has there been a change in the sources of manuscripts? Do revision and publication rates of international (meaning non-U.S.) articles match their submission rates? Which regions are lagging and which are excelling in terms of successfully navigating the peer-review process? The managing editor and I analyzed submissions, revisions , and publications based on the world region of the first-author's institutional affiliation. Regions were broken down as follows: Latin America, the …