Alienation has been a key concept and major area of empirical studies in sociology and psychology; however, most alienation studies have not dealt with the elderly. In an attempt to explore the effects of the aging process and the major events of later life on the aging person's vulnerability to alienation, older residents (50 years or more) in a small town (N=324) completed an initial questionnaire and two follow-up instruments at 2-year intervals. Data analyses indicated that the aging process was accompanied by a decline in alienation scores, suggesting that the later life stage is not necessarily vulnerable to alienation as earlier studies indicated. Retirement did not produce an accelerating effect on alienation scores, contradicting commonly held beliefs. Findings consistent with conventionally held beliefs showed that widowhood and poor health were likely to increase alienation, and an increase in the number of proximate relatives reduced alienation. Those findings which contradict earlier work may be due to differences in research design, methodology, and the characteristics of the sample population. (AG)