Previous research has demonstrated that family transitions, specifically births and deaths of preceding and following generations within families, are associated with individuals' later-life wellbeing and health. However, lifecourse, family systems and role theories suggest that this relationship might be complex because, as individuals age, they can experience multiple such events and their effects might be interconnected. Therefore, this study asks whether and how transitions into and out of multiple intergenerational family roles are associated with later-life wellbeing and health. We account for the occurrence, timing and ordering of the parents' death and the birth of the first child and grandchild. To this end, we use the concept of ‘generational placement trajectories’. They capture the vertical position of individuals in their intergenerational family over age and reflect the changing family roles and kinship reservoir of individuals across their lifecourse. Applying sequence, cluster and regression analyses to data from the German Ageing Survey (N = 3,617), we investigate associations between generational placement trajectories from birth to age 60 and four dimensions of later-life wellbeing and health, namely life satisfaction, depressiveness, functional limitations and physical health problems. Results support, first, the notion of salutary effects of a larger kinship reservoir and multiple social roles in the family and, second, indicate that ‘off-time’ transitions are associated negatively with various later-life wellbeing and health outcomes. Importantly, the effect of temporal deviations from the ‘normative’ family lifecourse might be affected by individual socio-economic differences. We enhance previous research by demonstrating that the occurrence, timing and ordering of transitions into and out of multiple kin relations and family roles across the lifecourse relate to individuals' later-life wellbeing and health.

Given the significant impact the pandemic has had on the lives of older adults, research is needed to understand how conceptions of ageing in place and attitudes about living independently may have shifted during a time marked by significant environmental change. There is a gap in knowledge about how older adults characterise positive support for ageing in place in response to rapid changes in physical and social environments, including home confinement, reduced social interaction and greater barriers to resources. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a photovoice study with community-dwelling older adults (N = 17) to understand how their experiences of adapting to pandemic conditions influenced their attitudes and behaviours towards ageing in place. We organised data into five themes: (1) the importance of proximity to family and loved ones; (2) the ability to balance safety and social connectivity; (3) an increased appreciation for the outdoors; (4) new platforms for learning; and (5) the role of inner belief systems. Adapting attitudes, expectations and behaviours through physical, social and personal domains highlights the role of change within an ecological framework of ageing. Findings contribute to the ongoing discourse about ageing in place within an ecological framework by identifying changes that older adults make at individual, interpersonal and system levels. This paper adds to the literature by identifying characteristics of ageing in place that community-dwelling older adults prioritise in the pandemic era. The paper also contributes to a growing body of research that elicits participation and offers the co-creation of knowledge with older adults. Lessons learned from the pandemic will continue to shape and inform future policies on ageing in place.

Little is known regarding the ways in which practitioners' views and approaches impact support for persons with a migration background (PwM) caring for individuals with dementia. This paper responds to this knowledge gap by identifying how practitioners frame dementia care in families with a migration background, and how these frames can be understood in light of the experiences of PwM caring for a family member with dementia. A total of 41 participants were included: ten practitioners (i.e. health and social care workers) and 31 PwM caring for a family member with dementia. All participants were part of a qualitative research project on dementia care in Dutch families with a migration background. Practitioners' expressed frames were identified through Hochschild's interpretive framework of ‘framing and feeling rules’. Thereafter, practitioners' identified frames were related to the care experiences of PwM caring for a family member with dementia. Findings indicate that practitioners operate within an approach that does not sufficiently take into account the uniqueness of each family carer. This leads to frictions within the practitioner–client relationship. We thus highlight the need for discussions about the tenability of practitioners' views and approaches in an increasingly globalised and diverse society.

Aboriginal Elders in Australia are recognised as having an important role as community leaders and cultural knowledge holders. However, the effects of colonisation and institutional racism mean Elders also experience significant social and economic disadvantage and poor health outcomes. There has been a systemic lack of attention to the worldviews and priorities of Aboriginal people as they age. In this article, we detail the findings of a qualitative study using a localised Aboriginal Elder-informed methodology that involved interviews and focus groups with 22 Aboriginal Elders in the remote town of Walgett on what ageing well means to them. This study was undertaken as part of a long-term partnership between a unique community-controlled Elders organisation and a university. The findings illuminate the barriers and enablers to ageing well for Aboriginal people in Walgett and elsewhere, and demonstrate the value to research, policy and service delivery of listening to and learning from Elders, centring Indigenous knowledges and worldviews, and bringing a more holistic conceptualisation of wellbeing to the understanding of what it means to age well.

The large proportion of people living in residential aged care services with dementia necessitates that any instrument used to measure quality of care is meaningful and practical to be completed by this group. This study assessed the external validity of using the Consumer Choice Index Six Dimension (CCI-6D) instrument to assess quality of care in a large sample of people living in residential aged care, including those with dementia. We applied the CCI-6D with 446 residents along with a range of measures of clinical and functional status and a measure of dementia-specific quality of life, the Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease (QOL-AD). Resident's cognitive abilities ranged from no evidence of cognitive impairment through to severe dementia. A high proportion of participants reported they felt very at home in their own room (82%, N = 367), while a lower proportion reported they could undertake meaningful activities that made them feel valued often (37%, N = 163). We identified moderate correlations between quality of care and quality of life, as measured through the QOL-AD utility score. Those with moderate dementia were significantly more likely to report poorer quality of care than those with no or mild dementia. This study provides further evidence for the use of the CCI-6D instrument to assess quality of care from the perspective of the individual receiving care even among those with living with dementia. Residents living with moderate dementia reported lower quality of care than those living with mild or without dementia, indicating the risks of poor care quality among this group.

How to meet the demands of long-term care is a pressing issue in ageing societies. In most countries, care systems depend on the capability and willingness of family members to fill the gap between existing needs and formal service provision. Understanding the motivations of adult children to engage in parent care is, therefore, of central importance. The existing research literature offers different explanations, and here we concentrate on two key perspectives: normative and affectual commitments. Based on longitudinal data from two waves of the Norwegian Life Course, Ageing and Generation Study (2007 and 2017), we investigate to what extent adult children's previous attitudes towards filial responsibility norms and their perceived quality of the relationship to parents (in 2007) are associated with subsequent care-giving to ageing mothers and fathers (in 2017). The analyses show no evidence of a correlation between support of general filial responsibility norms and provision of help and care 10 years later. Perceived quality of the relationship, on the other hand, is associated with subsequent help and care-giving. The patterns are similar for daughters and sons. We conclude that within the context of a comprehensive welfare state, like the Norwegian, care-giving seems to be more of an individual choice than a societal prescription.

In the light of an increasing future demand for long-term care services in ageing societies, families' provision for current and future long-term care needs has been subject to debate. Within this context, there is little discussion about parents' incentives to socialise their children to their own traits to achieve a desired child behaviour. Our study contributes to the literature by analysing to what extent parents transmit filial norms to their children and whether this transmission process affects children's care-giving behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. Using data from the German Family Panel, we initially analyse the transmission of filial norms from mothers and fathers to their children. Second, we examine the importance of filial norms that prevail in the child's local environment. Third, we assess whether an intergenerational transmission of norms transmits into child behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. We estimate linear regression models and account for child and parent characteristics as well as for the living environment. The results show that children have stronger filial norms when both parents report stronger filial norms. But, children also tend to be influenced by average norms in their local environment. Furthermore, children are more likely to provide support to a parent in need when their filial norms are stronger. We conclude that children's filial norms are at least partially shaped via a process of socialisation and that these norms transmit into children's care-giving behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. It is, therefore, important that filial norms that prevail in a society are in accordance with the institutional long-term care system that prevails within that country.

Citizenship and dementia studies have, during the last 15 years, grown into a substantial body of research recognising the experiences and agentic powers of people living with dementia. This article aims to contribute to and extend this research field. We undertake the aim through a feminist posthumanist non-representational analysis of a diary written by a man with Alzheimer's disease to explore the diary's potential to enact citizenship. The first section of the article examines current approaches to democracy, citizenship and dementia, and advances the concept intra-active citizenship, an approach that extends the individual and understands citizenship as enacted in and through entanglements of human–more-than-human agents. The second section is a theory-informed analysis of the diary, in which events, relations, doings and affective resonances constitute the analytical categories. The third section discusses whether the diary and the writing of it might enact citizenship, and if so, what kind of citizenship. The article concludes with a reflection on how our posthumanist, non-representational approach might pave a new path for theorising and, hence, contribute to new understandings of dementia and citizenship.

Assistive technology for older people promises much, but the research evidence suggests that it delivers little. One hypothesis to explain the lack of positive impact is that assistive technology is often implemented with little involvement of older people or other stakeholders, such as family members or care staff. The suggestion is that co-production may ensure that assistive technology solutions are better tailored to people's needs, capacities and living situations. In this article, we review existing studies to examine what works in co-production in relation to processes of design and implementation of assistive technology for older people. Our results show a growing interest in co-production as an approach in this field, with a wide range of approaches being employed. We highlight a number of key lessons from the research, including key issues around who needs to be engaged in the co-production, as well as essential elements of the process itself. Our review suggests that there is considerable potential in using co-production to improve effectiveness of technological solutions to the challenges of age-related impairments. However, we also emphasise the need for more longitudinal research in this area, to examine whether such collaborative approaches can truly deliver the promise of assistive technology for older people.

Existing research on housing cost burden focuses on its evolution over time. Few empirical studies, meanwhile, investigate changes in housing cost burden as a function of age. Literature is also scarce on how people's housing cost burden is affected by the act of retiring. In order to fill this research gap, we examine how the burden of housing costs tends to change after retirement and how the impact of retirement on housing cost burden differs for tenants as compared to homeowners. Taking advantage of the longitudinal data provided by the German Socio-Economic Panel (1993–2019), we estimate fixed effects regressions and model impact functions to estimate how people's housing cost burdens change after they retire. In addition, we interact the retirement event with tenure status. Our results show that retirement is associated with an increase in housing cost burden and that this association is stronger among tenants than among homeowners. We contribute to the literature on housing cost burden by taking a longitudinal perspective and showing that critical life events such as retirement do have an impact on the financial pressures exerted on households by housing costs and can even exacerbate the existing inequality in terms of housing cost burden between tenants and homeowners. We also demonstrate the importance for policy makers and future research of identifying social groups that may be particularly prone to financial overburden as a result of elevated housing costs in old age in order to implement policies that avoid such overburden and prevent the increase in social inequality after retirement.

Many international pension systems have undergone extensive changes over recent decades, associated with a dominant narrative of the need to respond to the pressures of population ageing. This has resulted in an increasing emphasis on curtailing the role of the state and promoting individual responsibility for pension saving. However, there is currently limited research which considers attitudes and expectations surrounding pension developments and, in particular, the role of state pensions. This is despite these factors influencing pension savings behaviour. Existing research suggests that under-saving is most common amongst women (linked to their more fragmented employment histories throughout the lifecourse) and millennials (born in the early 1980s up to the mid- to late 1990s), indicating the importance of better understanding their attitudes and expectations regarding pensions. This article aims to address this knowledge gap by exploring, in the United Kingdom, millennial women's knowledge, attitudes and expectations regarding state pensions, using 45 qualitative interviews and a focus group. The findings demonstrate that millennial women's situation regarding state pensions is characterised by a lack of knowledge, awareness and certainty, which influences their pensions behaviour. It identifies that, in general, pensions were not perceived as a current financial priority, with more immediate priorities taking precedence. Active engagement with pensions and uncertainties throughout the lifecourse, many of which people cannot control, presented a challenge to pension saving. Retirement was often seen as a distinct stage, with participants struggling to visualise their long-term future. The research contributes to the limited international understanding of attitudes towards pension knowledge and expectations, and their links to pension behaviour. It highlights the need for measures to encourage a greater focus on longer-term saving habits, accompanied by a context of collective policy solutions to pension challenges, as opposed to framing pensions in a purely individualised neo-liberal policy framework which adversely impacts on women's pension prospects.

The implications of an ageing population for democracy are far reaching, however, older people are often treated as a homogenous group. This article used survey data from 29 countries across Europe, alongside qualitative interviews with the older old (people aged 70 and older) in the North-West of England (United Kingdom). The findings suggest that voting declines amongst the older old and women aged 85 and older were less likely to report having voted compared to men in the same age group. Older women aged 85 and older were also less likely to feel that people like them could have an influence on politics. In terms of a sense of the future, having grandchildren was associated with the likelihood of reporting having voted, but being older than the country average life expectancy was not. The interviews with the older old in the North-West of England revealed that many could remember the first time they had voted and its lasting personal significance. However, many also described becoming politically disengaged in their late old age. Older people also reported barriers to voting, including difficulties in accessing polling stations and in using postal voting. There was a desire amongst the older old to see more young people voting and frustration about their lack of interest, including amongst their own children and grandchildren. This suggests a concern for democracy and future generations. As the population ages and people are living longer, it is important to develop the understanding of voter turnout amongst the older old at different ages and the barriers they can face.

The characteristics of Australian retirement village residents, an under-researched population, are not well understood. Knowledge of their wellbeing and modifiable factors associated with low wellbeing would aid in the introduction of health promotion measures and supports to facilitate healthy ageing-in-place. A novel approach utilising latent class analysis (LCA), a statistical method not previously employed to study this population, was undertaken to analyse cross-sectional survey data from 871 participants aged ≥65 years from retirement villages in Queensland, Australia. LCA identified latent, i.e. unobserved, underlying and often difficult to measure, groups within this population based on the responses of individuals to multiple observed variables. Survey participants were divided into groups, each with a distinct profile associated with a wellbeing state, as determined by responses to questions about physical health, unplanned hospitalisations, cognitive health and social connectedness. Multinomial logistic regression explored the relationship between modifiable health and lifestyle characteristics and membership of a particular wellbeing group. The median age of participants was 82 years (interquartile range = 76–88). While 69.0 per cent reported good to excellent health, polypharmacy was evident with 45.6 per cent of participants taking five or more prescription medications. In the previous 12 months, 33.3 per cent had experienced one or more falls and 30.6 per cent an unplanned hospitalisation. Distinct profiles were identified for three wellbeing groups: high (57.7% of participants), moderate (20.6%) and low wellbeing (21.7%). Injurious falls, limited ability to prepare meals and debilitating pain were associated with the moderate and low wellbeing groups. Physical activity significantly lowered the probability of a retirement village resident being in the low wellbeing group. Our findings highlight falls prevention, maintaining adequate nutrition, pain management and regular physical activity as actions that may optimise wellbeing, mitigate functional decline and support the independence of retirement village residents into later years of life.

Rural areas tend to be inhabited by more older people and thus have a higher prevalence of dementia. Combined with lower population densities and more sparse geography, rural areas pose numerous barriers and costs relating to support and resource provision. This may leave people with dementia in rural places at a significant disadvantage, leading to a heavy reliance on informal support networks. The present study explores the personal experiences of people living with dementia and carers living in rural areas, seeking to discover both benefits and challenges, as well as recommendations within the literature for improving the lives of those affected by dementia in rural areas. A scoping review following the framework of Arksey and O'Malley identified 60 studies that describe or discuss the personal experience of dementia (either by the person with dementia or carer), in relation to living in rural or remote geographical areas. Four overarching themes were derived, namely the possible benefits of living in a rural community (supportive rural communities), sources of strength described by people affected by dementia in rural areas (managing and coping), detrimental aspects of living in a rural community (rural community challenges) and difficulties with dementia care services. Three further themes yielded recommendations for improving the experience of dementia in rural areas. This review highlights some potential opportunities related to living in rural areas for people living with dementia. These often come with parallel challenges, reflecting a delicate balance between being well-supported and being in crisis for those living in rural areas. Given the limited access to formal services, supporting people with dementia in rural areas requires input and innovation from the people, organisations and services local to those communities.

Due to demographic developments, the number of immigrant families with older members is growing across Western Europe. Poised between the different approaches to care in their countries of origin and destination, such families are treading new ground as they negotiate support for older family members. Based on semi-structured interviews with 26 older and younger family members from 20 Turkish immigrant families in Denmark, this article investigates the broad variation in how these families approach caring for older people. At one end of the scale, some families (re)create a traditional Turkish approach to care in which three generations live together and the daughter-in-law is the main care provider. At the other end of the scale, some families follow the Danish approach in which families rely on public care provision. In between these two poles, many families devise a variety of care solutions for their older members that often rely on considerable support by family. Utilising Cati Coe's concept of care-scription, the analysis shows how families negotiate – and sometimes struggle over – who will shoulder which tasks. In the post-migration context, daughters-in-law are often able to retreat from their traditional role of care provider, which in turn increases expectations of daughters' care provisions. In Denmark, which is a relatively gender-equal society, Turkish daughters may seek to make their brothers take on a greater role in the provision of care for their parents, and in some families, the children also turn towards public care provisions to share the burden of parental care. Resistance from older parents may, however, short-circuit this strategy. Overall, the study points both to the difficulties faced by older immigrants with limited host-country language proficiency when utilising public European care provisions and to the complex and unsettled nature of care provisions in immigrant families in Europe today.

Recent scholarship has highlighted the experiences of, and various challenges faced by, dying persons and the workers tasked with end-of-life care. However, research has not sufficiently considered what symbolic resources – such as beliefs, rituals and vocabularies – are drawn upon by care workers when caring for dying and deceased residents in care homes, together with how this is informed by financial regimes. I address this deficit by drawing upon an extensive ethnographic study, undertaken in southern England (United Kingdom) between 2013 and 2014, at two residential care homes (one low-cost and one high-cost) for older people. Counter to analyses of death and dying that too frequently foreground the extraordinary, rather than the mundane and everyday, I examine the gaping disparities between two differently priced settings. In the low-cost home, residents experience a social and moral death. The dying and the dead are treated with disregard and indifference. In the high-cost home, caring for the living was extended beyond the biological termination of life. This was influenced not only by the marketing of ‘high-quality’ care, but also by workers and residents who, in their gestures and rituals of honouring, remembering and mourning the dead, made high-quality care possible. My analysis shows, then, how cavernous inequities unfold within the care sector and how, in turn, experiences of death and dying are deeply fragmented by the market. I conclude by arguing that researchers must both take the normative and symbolic culture of care work seriously and examine how the availability of this is directly impacted by the costing and funding of care. Doing so, I argue, allows us to work towards establishing a care sector that is equitable both for older people and care workers.

Loneliness and social isolation are important social determinants of wellbeing of older adults. Conversational exchanges can promote connectedness between older adults, however, conversations may not always come easy. Research shows that exposure to nature-based stimuli such as pictures and videos can stimulate social aspirations and trigger associations that could facilitate conversations, in particular when nature scenery is perceived as fascinating, mysterious, spacious and suited for social interaction. Therefore, this study investigated whether exposure to these nature characteristics (high versus low) lead to associations that could act as conversational material. A randomised factorial design, using a virtual reality-based approach for experimental control, led to 17 different virtual representations of nature (VN). In total, 150 participants (60 years and older) were recruited for an online survey. Spontaneous associations were coded on personal engagement and valence. The number of associations was measured with one multiple-choice question. VN exposure successfully triggered personally engaging and positively valenced associations and were related to multiple associations, in particular when the VN were high on mystery. Furthermore, positive effects of VN exposure was more pronounced for participants with high (rather than low) levels of nature relatedness and many (rather than few) available nature opportunities. These findings indicate that VN exposure provides fertile ground for conversations as a means to promote connectedness and social wellbeing of older adults.

Although ageing is personally relevant to many if not most gerontologists, a reflexive perspective is largely absent from gerontological scholarship. This paper employs duoethnography, a variant of autoethnography, to explore how experiences related to growing older have informed the authors' teaching and scholarship in the field of ageing. Duoethnography involves putting two autoethnographies into conversation, promoting dynamic self-understandings and generating new insights through dialogue. The co-authors first reflected on their journeys to date in the field, including on how the personification of ageing has shifted our perspective. Then we shared our narratives and made some initial revisions based on each other's feedback. Next, we collaboratively identified and discussed three broad, connective themes: the differing yet central role of gender in our narratives, teaching and generativity, and the pedagogical and personal challenges associated with ageism. Our reflections and dialogue deepened our understanding of these issues central to studying and teaching about ageing. The kind of reflective practice that we model could be a vital resource for bridging the gap between theory and practice, researcher and researched.

Leisure participation in older age has principally been researched from individual-level theoretical perspectives that view leisure as reflecting adaptations to ageing-related losses and change. Recent orientations to later-life leisure participation, such as innovation theory, emphasise positive developmental aspects and uses of older individuals' leisure pursuits, driven by personal agency. Moreover, the potential of later-life leisure activities to contribute to community is conceptualised in social capital theory perspectives that bridge individual- and community-level functions of leisure participation. This paper presents findings from qualitative thematic analysis of oral histories on leisure conducted with 58 persons aged 60 and over in rural south-west England, to examine the personal uses and functions of their leisure occupations in older age, and the role that these activities play in connecting older individuals to their communities. While participants described lifetime patterns of leisure characterised by a core set of activities and interests, later life was a period of leisure transitions in which they actively used new and continuing pastimes to adapt to changing personal circumstances, abilities and aspirations. The findings also demonstrate how participants' leisure activities – ranging from avidly pursued hobbies to formal volunteering – served individual adaptive and developmental purposes, and were a means of fostering social connectivity and contributing to rural community life. Implications of these findings are discussed in regard to leisure theory, policy and practice. This paper adds to the literature on ageing and leisure by identifying the benefits of examining older persons' leisure participation from a combined conceptual perspective that can elucidate its functions at both the micro- and meso-levels of society.

Previous studies have found negative ageing narratives in the media during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, few have focused on compassionate ageism and how the news responded to the progression of the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated (a) media themes of negative and compassionate ageism and (b) their relationships with COVID-19 parameters and the public health response. The sample included 1,197 articles relevant to COVID-19 and older people in Hong Kong published between January and December 2020. We used thematic analysis to identify themes from the news articles and structural equation modelling to explore these themes' relationship with the number of older people infected, effective reproduction number, number of COVID-19 deaths and public health response parallel in time. Pandemic-related variables were lagged for a day – the time needed to be reflected in the news. Two negative ageism themes portrayed older people as vulnerable to COVID-19 but counterproductive in combating the pandemic. Two compassionate ageism themes depicted older people as a homogenous group of passive assistance recipients. The theme blaming older people was associated with the number of confirmed infections (β = 0.418, p = 0.002) but vulnerability of older people was not associated with pandemic-related variables. The theme helping older people was negatively associated with the percentage of older people in confirmed infections (β = −0.155, p = 0.019). The theme resources available was negatively associated with confirmed infections (β = −0.342, p < 0.001) but positively associated with the Containment and Health Index (β = 0.217, p = 0.005). Findings suggested that negative and compassionate ageism were translated into narratives about older people in the media as the pandemic evolved but did not address the actual risk they faced. Media professionals should be aware of the potential negative and compassionate ageism prompted by the news agenda and promote adequate health behaviours and responses.