The concept and potential implications of a premature death of an older person are under-recognised and misunderstood by society. Clinical, forensic and public health practitioners need to redress this gap to prepare society better for a future where an increasing proportion of the population are vulnerable older people. Reliable and valid information is paramount for understanding how many older people have premature, preventable deaths, with implications for aged care services, health-care expenditure, quality and safety, and human rights. Our aim is to: (a) provide discourse on the limitations and challenges to the use of the concepts ‘premature’ and ‘preventable’ deaths, examining the situation for nursing home residents; and (b) propose the use of a novel classification system of ‘treated’, ‘un-treated’ and ‘untreatable’ causes of death that is more sophisticated and reflects the demographic reality of our ageing population. Accepting that preventable, premature deaths may happen to older people and adopting a new classification is a novel approach that has considerable benefits for health and life care of older persons. Improved assessment of the quality of care provided, including identification of health or life care practices that are unsafe or deleterious, can be identified and addressed.

Western societies are ageing rapidly. Today people do not only live longer, they also have fewer children. These developments exert considerable pressure on welfare states. Children have usually been the mainstay of old age support, especially when there is no partner. We thus face new challenges: On which support networks can a growing number of childless older people rely? (How) can the lack of children be compensated in the informal social network? What role does the state play and how is informal and formal support linked? Our comparative analyses of the support networks of childless elders are based on the first two waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, including 14,394 people with (instrumental) activities of daily living limitations aged 50 and over from 12 European countries. On average, 10 per cent of older Europeans today have no children. Sporadic informal support for these elders is often taken over by the extended family, friends and neighbours, and thus the lack of children is compensated within the social network. Intense care tasks, however, are more likely provided by professional providers, especially in the case of childless older people. In countries with low social service provision, childless elders are therefore likely to experience a lack of (formal) support, especially when depending on vital care.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal impact of the duration of retirement on the cognitive functioning of male elderly workers in Japan using data from the National Survey of Japanese Elderly. We explore how the complexity of a worker's longest served job affects cognitive functioning after retirement. In particular, we investigate eight dimensions of the longest served job using information listed in the United States Dictionary of Occupational Titles, namely physical demands, mathematical development, reasoning development, language development, the job's relationship to data, the job's relationship to people, the job's relationship to things and the specific vocational preparation required. Our estimator takes account of the potential endogeneity of the duration of retirement and the left-censoring of the duration of retirement. Our empirical evidence suggests that the duration of retirement has a negative and significant impact on cognitive functioning. Moreover, among the eight dimensions of job characteristics, high complexity in the job's relation to data is found to be an important job characteristic in delaying the deterioration of cognitive functioning after retirement.

Anticipated driving cessation required due to health or cognitive decline often evokes concerns about practical aspects of retaining mobility and quality of life as well as personal and social identity changes in older persons. While driving cessation is often perceived as stressful because it disrupts peoples' lives and poses practical hurdles, we argue that part of the stress associated with driving cessation can be attributed to identity change with regard to thinking of oneself as ‘no longer a driver’ as well as the perception of ‘getting old’. In an exploratory study, 208 older adults who had either ceased driving or had a plan to stop driving in the near future completed a ‘Driver Identity Survey’ with multiple questions about how they thought they would feel before and after stopping driving, as well as worries about practical hassles, life changes and changed relationships. Participants reported driving cessation as a significant life event associated with subjectively feeling older. Irrespective of current driving status, older participants identified the state of having ceased driving as associated with feeling older than their chronological age. Participants' expectations about practicalities and social identity changes were both significant predictors of stress associated with driving cessation. Discussion focuses on how expectations of anticipated changes in functionality and identity may influence driving cessation decisions and adjustment in later life.

Research suggests that adult children are less likely to provide care to community-dwelling parents when beds in residential care settings are more widely available. The underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Drawing on data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) on 1,214 impaired parent–child dyads from 12 countries, we find that adult children are less likely to provide care in countries where beds in residential care settings are more widely available because (a) parents’ care needs are less severe in such countries (out-selection hypothesis) and (b) adult children and impaired parents are less likely to share a household in such countries (in-selection hypothesis). Finally (c), after taking these two factors into account, adult children remain less likely to provide care in countries where beds in residential care settings are more widely available (diffusion of responsibility hypothesis). Plausibly, being able to rely on residential care undermines adult children's sense of urgency to step in and provide care to their parents.

Building upon earlier studies on ageism in the media and the polarised ageism framework, this contribution compares the prevalence of three forms of ageism – intergenerational, compassionate and new ageism – in four Canadian and American newspapers. The analysis has three objectives. First, it adapts the polarised ageism framework to a comparative case study to assess its usefulness beyond Canada. Second, it analyses which form of ageism occurs more frequently in the coverage of ageing-related stories in Canadian or American newspapers. Third, it studies the importance of the political orientation of news media across both countries by comparing the portrayal of ageing-related stories in conservative and liberal newspapers. Core findings include the presence of a stronger focus on intergenerational ageism in American and conservative newspapers and more frequent prevalence of compassionate ageism in Canada and liberal newspapers. American newspapers also typically employ more pejorative and sensational language.

The concept of participation, introduced through models such as the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, has become increasingly important in health and social care. However, it has not been consistently defined or operationalised, and there is very limited research into participation in the context of advanced age and disability. This article reports a study which explored participation from the perspectives of community-living people aged over 80 years with physical rehabilitation needs. Using a grounded theory methodology, 11 participants aged 81–96 years were recruited from a National Health Service Trust in the United Kingdom. The main finding was that participation was experienced as the enacting of values. Values provided the motivation for specific ways of participating in life, guided actions and behaviours, and were the means through which participation was interpreted. Commonly enacted values were: connecting with others; maintaining autonomy; affirming abilities; doing the best you can; being useful; maintaining self-identity; and pursuing interests. A process was evident whereby participation was challenged by deteriorating health and losses and the participants adapted (or not) to overcome these challenges. To promote participation in advanced age, health and social care policy and practice must consider the values important to older people. Interventions should be congruent with these values and promote strategies through which they can be enacted.

This paper concerns the social divisions of later life. Although research in this field has focused on class, gender and, more recently, sexuality as sources of division in later life, the division between the fit and the frail has tended to be ignored or viewed as an outcome of these other divisions. This paper challenges this assumption, arguing that corporeality constitutes a major social division in later life. This in many ways prefigures a return to the 19th-century categorisation of those ‘impotent through age’, whose position was among the most abject in society. Their ‘impotence’ was framed by an inability to engage in paid labour. Improved living standards during and after working life saw age's impotence fade in significance and in the immediate post-war era, social concern turned towards the relative poverty of pensioners. Subsequent demographic ageing and the expanding cultures of the third age have undermined the homogeneity of retirement. Frailty has become a major source of social division, separating those who are merely older from those who are too old. This division excludes the ‘unsuccessfully’ aged from utilising the widening range of material and social goods that characterise the third age. It is this social divide rather than those of past occupation or income that is becoming a more salient line of fracture in later life.

Little is known about the experiences of people ageing with impairments; social gerontology has largely focused on those ageing into disability rather than those ageing with disability. This paper synthesises existing knowledge to determine what is known about the experiences of those ageing with deafblindness. A comprehensive literature search was undertaken between April 2013 and May 2014. The review method was informed by systematic review principles. A total of 24 references were identified for inclusion. No studies examining deafblind people's experience of ageing and old age specifically were found, suggesting that those ageing with deafblindness are an under-studied sub-group within the deafblind population. However, deafblind people describe ageing experiences in studies exploring their lives generally, and in personal accounts of living with the impairment. Practitioner-authored material also explores the topic. Similarities in experience were identified between those ageing with deafblindness and those ageing with other impairments: ongoing change and consequent need for adaptation; a particular relationship between ageing and impairment; a sense that whilst one can learn adaptive strategies having lived with impairment for many years, it does not necessarily get easier; and a particular relationship with care and support services. These experiences illustrate the unique nature of ageing with impairment, and challenge gerontologists to engage in further research and theorising in the field of disability in later life.