Understanding predictors of successful ageing is essential to policy development promoting quality-of-life of an ageing population. Initial models precluded successful ageing in the presence of chronic disease/functional disability; however, this is discrepant with self-reported successful ageing. Indicators of social, psychological and physical health in 1,735 people aged 65–74, living in Canada, Columbia, Brazil or Albania, were analysed in the International Mobility in Ageing Study. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the change in self-rated successful ageing in relation to physical health, depression, social connectedness, resilience and site, while controlling for age, gender and income sufficiency. Sixty-five per cent of participants self-rated as ageing successfully; however, this was significantly different across sites (p < 0.0005, range 17–85%) and gender (p = 0.019). Using objective measures, 6 per cent were classified as ‘successful’, with significant variability amongst sites (p < 0.0005, range 0–12%). Subjective successful ageing was associated with fewer (not absence of) chronic diseases, absence of depression and less dysfunction in activities of daily living, but not with objective measures of physical dysfunction. Social connectedness and resilience also aligned with self-rated successful ageing. Traditional definitions of objective successful ageing are likely too restrictive, and thus, do not approximate self-rated successful ageing. International differences suggest that site could be a surrogate for variables other than physical/mental health and social engagement.

The inclusive development strategy proposed by the Chinese government embraces social inclusion for older people. In line with most developing countries, China's policy on social inclusion for older people focuses almost exclusively on material security in the form of pensions. This paper examines the impact of pensions on social inclusion for older people across four dimensions: family interaction, social support, social participation and self-assessment using data from the 2014 China Longitudinal Ageing Social Survey. The results demonstrate that pensions improve dramatically the relationships between older adults and their family members and friends, and therefore their social inclusion in the life world. The exception is social participation which seems to be immune to material income effects. However, the stratified pension system in China generates complex and hierarchical effects on social inclusion among different sub-groups. Social inclusion among older people with high exclusion risks but low pensions is very sensitive to pension levels. Conversely, most pensions are distributed to those with the lowest exclusion risks as a result of the disappearance of their impact on social inclusion. We argue that future social inclusion policies for older people in China should focus first on achieving greater equality in pensions.

Although women's appearance is theorised as being central to their identity and social currency, much prior research has argued that as women age, other aspects of their lives assume a higher priority than their appearance. Nevertheless, they continue to invest time in appearance practices. In undertaking these various appearance practices, older women have to negotiate a range of conflicting social norms of age-appropriate appearance, such as managing the balancing act between ‘letting themselves go’, on the one hand, and looking like ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, on the other. This paper contributes to the growing literature on older women's attitudes to their appearance and related practices. Drawing on data from a two-year research project in a hair-salon catering primarily for older clients, I examine the question of the importance to women of their appearance through the lens of their hair-care practices. Focusing on a group of nine female clients aged 55–90 in a small hair-salon in southern England, I show how participants in their talk and embodied presentation display shifting orientations of investment/interest (or lack of interest) in their appearance. Comparing participants’ appearance practices, with their talk in two sequential environments in which a possible interest in appearance is made particularly salient, I argue that these shifting orientations reveal participants’ subtle negotiation of competing social norms of appearance for older women.

Frail older people worldwide are increasingly being cared for in their own homes by migrant live-in care workers; however, extant literature on care relationships in this care context is sparse. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore the quality and the nature of care relationships between full-time, live-in migrant care workers and older people in Israel. Quantitative and qualitative data were drawn from a 2014 survey of 116 migrant care workers and 73 older care recipients. Mean scores for four quantitative items relating to care relationships were examined and independent samples t-tests and Pearson correlations were performed, whereas qualitative data were examined using thematic analysis. Credibility of qualitative findings was checked by peer review. Most older people and migrant care workers gave high ratings to the four items. Significant correlations between the two groups were found for their responses on all four relationship items assessed, with only one item (‘get along well’) producing significant t-test differences. Qualitative data provided a deeper understanding of the quantitative ratings of care relationships. Four major qualitative themes emerged as inextricably tied with both groups’ perceptions of positive care relationships. These were: an emotional connection; reciprocity; effective communication; and meeting the older person's care needs. Study findings were interpreted through the theoretical lens of relationship-centred care. Implications of the findings for theory, practice and further research are discussed.

Economists typically argue population ageing generates fiscal pressures by restricting the tax base while increasing demands for social spending. Alongside other economic pressures associated with neoliberalism, this dynamic contributes to a politics of ‘enduring austerity’ that limits governments’ fiscal discretion. The politics of population ageing reflects modelling techniques, such as generational accounting (GA), which, anticipating future deficits, create demands for policy action today to address projected intergenerational inequalities. Taking Australia as a case study, this paper explores the politics of GA in public budgetary processes. While existing critiques reject GA by arguing it relies on ‘apocalyptic’ or unreliable demography, we focus on a different kind of contestation, which applies the techniques and even the categories of GA to frame different problems and promote different solutions. We identify three sites of partisan contest that refocus fiscal modelling: including the tax side of the budget equation; comparing the cost of public provision to public subsidies for private programmes; and including the costs of environmental damage. At each site, the future-orientated logic of GA is mobilised to contest the policy implications of austerity. This complicates analysis that financialisation and neoliberalism necessarily ‘de-politicise’ policy by removing state discretion. Instead, we identify an increasingly important, if technocratic, form of political contestation that offers the possibility to promote more egalitarian responses to population ageing.

This analysis examines how the narrative self of a person with dementia is maintained by family members in a small rural Nova Scotian community. In the literature, the expectation is often that rurality is a condition of isolation, distance from family and limited health resources. However, drawing on three years of ethnographic and interviewing research with a large extended family whose patriarch, Alexander, is a person with dementia, we demonstrate how a community's rurality influences interpretations of dementia. In Alexander's rurality, of particular import are local definitions of belonging, which privilege intimate knowledge of local history, working as a farmer to shape the land, and being of Scottish descent and male. As family members find Alexander's belonging to come into question in their community, we show them to employ narratives in which he is valorised for continuing to uphold local values – of ‘usefulness’ and of ‘being the land’. We show how the family members must also revisit and revise these narratives when Alexander's belonging is further called into question outside the family setting and, specifically, at the local farmer's market, where Alexander is often no longer greeted by other marketgoers. The men and women of the family arrive at different interpretations of this development, with the women considering marketgoers to demean and dehumanise Alexander, while the men feel that the marketgoers are avoiding interactions that would embarrass him. Such disagreements reveal the ongoing emotional labour of creating narratives that lack closure, certainty and consensus, as well as ways in which gender and rurality operate intersectionally in the process of meaning-making.

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on creating age-friendly cities to accommodate the changing needs of older people and to promote their overall health and wellbeing. This paper focuses on some of the urban planning implications related to maintaining the social health, as a main component of overall health and wellbeing, of older people. Specifically, we look at the role and accessibility of third places (popular public places where many people go to socialise) in relation to older people living in different neighbourhood built-form patterns, and how these factors impact on the formation of absent, weak and strong social ties. The data draw upon interviews with 54 older people living in different neighbourhood built-form patterns on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Our findings demonstrate the significant role third places have in affording older people opportunities to engage in the social lives of their local communities, thus contributing to their social health and overall wellbeing. This research supports previous studies relating to the accessibility of amenities by re-emphasising the importance of planning for the provision of third places that are conveniently located and easily accessible by older people. The paper concludes by arguing for the planning of transport and third-place interventions in Australia's sprawling suburban landscapes to allow older people more opportunities to be socially connected.

The aim of this study is to explore how community-dwelling older people with cognitive problems and their care-givers (dyads) perceive their own social participation, how care-givers evaluate the social participation of the people they care for and what factors they perceive as influential. In this qualitative study, we performed 13 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with dyads who participated in the Social Fitness Programme. We used content analysis to analyse the interviews thematically. Social participation perceptions include changes over time and a discrepancy in perspectives. All the people with cognitive problems and most care-givers perceived a decreased social participation. Most people with cognitive problems answered that they were satisfied, in contrast to most care-givers who were dissatisfied with the decreased social participation of the people they cared for. Analysing the influencing factors resulted in five themes: behavioural, physical, social environmental, physical environmental and activity-related. People with cognitive problems and their care-givers displayed a discrepancy in social participation perspectives. This becomes a major dilemma, especially for younger care-givers. A key element is a sometimes deliberate choice of people with cognitive problems to refrain from social participation to protect themselves from the consequences of cognitive problems and from encounters with others. This highlights the dynamics of social participation as an interaction between personal factors and the social and physical environment in which social participation occurs.

The number of older parents ageing in tandem with their adult children with intellectual disability (ID) is increasing. This unique situation calls for greater research that investigates how older parents experience this extended care-giving role, including the extent to which they are engaging in futures planning. Participants were recruited via disability service providers in South Australia. Using the theoretical perspective of hermeneutic phenomenology to understand lived experiences, semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out with older parents (N = 17, mean age 70 years). Six offspring were living in the family home while the remainder were in supported accommodation. Main themes to emerge from the data were: (a) perpetual parenting, (b) costs and rewards and (c) planning to plan. Parents were providing care across a range of areas, regardless of whether their offspring lived at home or in supported accommodation. While aware of the need to plan for the future, most did not have a firm plan in place. Parents are providing a high level of support to their adult children with ID regardless of whether they live in supported accommodation or the family home. While some have started to think about future care arrangements, most appear unclear over what the future holds.

The drive to deliver services addressing loneliness in older people by telephone and online makes it increasingly relevant to consider how the mode of communication affects the way people interact with services and the capacity of services to meet their needs. This paper is based on the qualitative strand of a larger mixed-methods study of a national phoneline tackling loneliness in older people in the United Kingdom. The research comprised thematic analysis of four focus groups with staff and 42 semi-structured interviews with callers. It explored the associations between telephone-delivery, how individuals used the services and how the services were able to respond. To understand these associations, it was useful to identify some constituent characteristics of telephone communication in this context: namely its availability, reach and non-visual nature. This enabled various insights and comparison with other communication media. For example, the availability of the services attracted people seeking frequent emotional support but this presented challenges to staff. More positively, the ability of the services to connect disparate individuals enabled them to form different kinds of satisfying relationships. The evolution of mixed communication forms, such as internet-based voice communication and smartphone-based visual communication, makes analysis at the level of a technology's characteristics useful. Such a cross-cutting perspective can inform both the design of interventions and assessment of their suitability for different manifestations of loneliness.