In many sub-Saharan African communities, caring for vulnerable children in the era of HIV/AIDS appears to be creating deep financial, physical and psychological strains for care-givers, the great majority of whom are ageing women or ‘grandmothers’. Yet, limited primary research has been carried out with older women in specific communities, and therefore grandmothers' collective responses, sources of support, complex lived experiences, and diverse family situations are not well understood. This paper presents the findings of research undertaken in four communities in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, between 2006 and 2010. The purpose was to understand the daily stresses, collective responses and mobilisations of older women in these communities. The research involved repeated focus groups, interviews and participant observation involving approximately 100 older women. In the analysis, attention is given to the diversities among participants, the ways in which HIV/AIDS intermingles with other stresses in their lives to drive their mobilisations, and their collective responses, even amidst highly constrained conditions. Through these lenses, the paper illuminates how older women in these communities are organising in response to the combined, devastating and diverse effects of HIV/AIDS, poverty, violence and illness. It also suggests that, counter to some stereotyping of ‘African grandmothers’ as frail or passive, these women are forming associations in order to generate incomes, resist stigma, connect with broader support networks and provide care to hundreds in their communities.

Access to economic resources influences the material conditions of life for older people, as well as the freedoms and capacities of older people to achieve the kind of lives they value. Security is one aspect of later life valued by older people. Ontological security provides a sense of order and continuity and needs to be understood in terms of the situated life experiences and circumstances of older people. The study reported in this paper analysed 145 qualitative interviews with New Zealanders aged 63–93 in order to explore how participants understand ontological security. Varying levels of access to economic resources were associated with differing abilities of participants to manage the unpredictability of everyday life. Among the wealthy, security was strongly connected to the freedoms provided by ample financial resources. Contrary to what might be expected, those with the lowest levels of economic resources did not express higher levels of insecurity, but instead drew upon life experiences of managing and making do to construct a trajectory of security. Those with mid-range levels of economic resources expressed most insecurity, including anxiety over changing economic conditions and concerns over their ability to manage reductions in economic resources. In discussing the implications of this, the paper highlights the need to recognise ways in which access to economic resources intersect with life circumstances, past experiences and future social expectations to provide opportunities for all older people to pursue security as they strive to age well.

This paper explores how the concept of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is constructed through Spanish media and documentary films and how it is represented. The article analyses three documentary films and the cultural and social contexts in and from which they emerged: Solé's Bucarest: la memòria perduda [Bucharest: Memory Lost] (2007), Bosch's Bicicleta, cullera, poma [Bicycle, Spoon, Apple] (2010) and Fabrá, Peris and Badia's Las voces de la memoria [Memory's Voices] (2011). The three documentary films approach AD from different perspectives, creating well-structured discourses of what AD represents for contemporary Spanish society, from medicalisation of AD to issues of personhood and citizenship. These three films are studied from an interdisciplinary perspective, in an effort to strengthen the links between ageing and dementia studies and cultural studies. Examining documentary film representations of AD from these perspectives enables semiotic analyses beyond the aesthetic perspectives of film studies, and the exploration of the articulation of knowledge and power in discourses about AD in contemporary Spain.

This study investigates how (a) the reliance on public care and (b) the type of public care received by older people in the Netherlands depends on the availability of partners and adult children. Older people aged 65 years and older were surveyed in the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study at two time-points. Survey results were linked to registry data on public care receipt at the two time-points. Multilevel models revealed that receiving frequent help in the household from children was not associated with public care receipt. Only men having a partner were less likely to receive public care. Further analyses comparing the receipt of skilled and unskilled forms of public care revealed that female partners are especially important in rendering unskilled care unnecessary compared to skilled care. Two arguments may explain our findings. One is that a gender-bias exists in processing public care requests – men are perceived as less able to provide care to their female partners. Another is that men lack the skills, or perceive themselves as lacking the care skills that female partners have. Caution is advised against introducing policy measures that increase pressure on female partners.

Relatively little attention has been paid to understanding and addressing the potential health-related barriers faced by older workers to stay at work. Using three representative samples from the Canadian Community Health Survey, we examined the relationship between seven physical chronic conditions and labour market participation in Canada between 2000 and 2005. We found that all conditions were associated with an increased probability of not being able to work due to health reasons. In our adjusted models, heart disease was associated with the greatest probability of not working due to health reasons. Arthritis was associated with the largest population attributable fraction. Other variables associated with not being able to work due to health reasons included older age, female gender and lower educational attainment. We also found particular combinations of chronic conditions (heart disease and diabetes; and arthritis and back pain) were associated with a greater risk than the separate effects of each condition independently. The results of this study demonstrate that chronic conditions are associated with labour market participation limitations to differing extents. Strategies to keep older workers in the labour market in Canada will need to address barriers to staying at work that result from the presence of chronic conditions, and particular combinations of conditions.

This paper examines life-long singlehood and its ramifications in old age among women and men in Ireland. During the life-time of the 26 research participants, Ireland shifted from the Western European marriage pattern, characterised by high rates of singlehood, late marriage and high fertility, to declining prevalence of singlehood, higher marriage rates and lower fertility. In-depth interviews were analysed with the help of narrative analysis and grounded theory methods. We identified two main pathways into singlehood that had a long-term impact on the participants' lives. The women and men who had chosen singlehood associated this status with independence, self-fulfilment and autonomy throughout their lifecourse, including in old age. In contrast, older adults who had been constrained in their choice of marital status due to poverty, care work, family roles and cultural norms, expressed regret and dissatisfaction with their single status. In the latter group, the ramifications of the inability to actualise the roles of a spouse, parent and grandparent were particularly apposite in later life when many felt the absence of close ties and expressed loneliness. For some of the older adults who had been constrained in their choice of marital status in earlier life, the possibility of entering into a romantic relationship seemed more feasible in later life. How older adults interpret their pathway into the single status in earlier life impacts on relationship formation and life satisfaction in older age.

Ageing in place has been promoted by policy makers as the optimal residential solution for later life, premised on older people's reluctance to contemplate relocation, their declining residential mobility and high levels of residential satisfaction. This paper takes a critical perspective to the notion of ageing in place by examining older people's dislikes about, rather than levels of satisfaction with their home and neighbourhood environments, and establishing whether such dislikes influence a desire to move. Analysis of the 2004 Living in Wales Survey shows that despite high levels of residential satisfaction, a significant proportion of older people do wish to move. Logistic regression results indicate this desire is strongly associated with dislikes about their immediate home environment, more than neighbourhood factors. Contemplating a move in later life may be shaped more by a desire to ‘attach’ to people, than to remain in situ to preserve an attachment to place.