A critique of the study of ageing by sociologists and historians is provided in this paper, on the basis of the comparative neglect of life history studies across the whole lifespan. It points to the skewed nature of studies reported in the literature. As a corrective, results from a UK life history based study are presented. It focuses on leisure, grand- parenting and intimate relationships between adults, leading to conclusions about the relationship between class factors in the determination of late life experiences and self perceptions of the meaning of old age.

Family relationships are important for wellbeing across the lifecourse and are known to be important for people living with dementia, bringing benefits to self-esteem and identity, as well as providing support for people living at home. Recent research has explored the impact of dementia upon relationships. Much of this research is qualitative in nature and rarely included in systematic reviews, however, it has the potential to provide significant contributions to understanding the interplay between family relationships and dementia and to inform interventions. A systematic synthesis of qualitative research concerning the impact of dementia upon family relationships was undertaken, using thematic synthesis. Eleven articles were reviewed, which address the perspectives of people living with dementia and their spouse and/or adult children. The aims of this review are to illuminate what is currently known about the reciprocal influences between family relationships and dementia from the perspectives of the family (including the person with dementia); and to consider the implications of these findings for research and practice. Four super-ordinate themes were identified: ‘a shared history’, ‘negotiating the impact of dementia upon the relationship’, ‘openness and awareness’ and ‘shifting sands’. This synthesis contributes to an emerging field but also highlights gaps in current understanding of the impact of dementia upon relationships and in providing appropriate interventions. Implications for research and practice are considered.

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.

Understanding the nature and extent of unmet need for social care among older people is a critical policy priority in the United Kingdom and beyond, as national governments juggle the provision of adequate social care for a growing older population with competing funding priorities. Several factors can heighten the experience of unmet need among older people, for instance their family environment, and their health and socio-economic status. This paper contributes empirical evidence on the patterns of unmet need for social care among older people in England today, focusing on the individual characteristics associated with experiencing unmet need in relation to mobility tasks, activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). The results show that about 55 per cent of older individuals with an ADL difficulty had unmet need, compared to 24 per cent of those with an IADL difficulty and 80 per cent of those with a mobility difficulty. Characteristics reflecting greater vulnerability were more strongly associated with the risk of experiencing unmet need for ADLs, and such vulnerability was greater for particular ADLs (e.g. bathing), and for a higher number of ADLs. The findings reaffirm the complexity of conceptualising and empirically investigating unmet need in later life, and add to our understanding of the challenges of providing adequate and appropriate social care to older people.

Losing a spouse is among the most devastating events that may occur in people's lives. We use longitudinal data from 1,224 participants in the German Socio-economic Panel Study (SOEP) to examine (a) how life satisfaction changes with the experience of spousal loss; (b) whether socio-demographic factors and social and health resources moderate spousal loss-related changes in life satisfaction; and (c) whether extent of anticipation, reaction and adaptation to spousal loss are associated with mortality. Results reveal that life satisfaction shows anticipatory declines about two and a half years prior to (anticipation), steep declines in the months surrounding (reaction) and lower levels after spousal loss (adaptation). Older age was associated with steeper anticipatory declines, but less steep reactive declines. Additionally, younger age, better health, social participation and poorer partner health were associated with better adaptation. Higher pre-loss life satisfaction, less steep reactive declines and better adaptation were associated with longevity. The discussion focuses on the utility of examining the interrelatedness among anticipation, reaction and adaptation to further our understanding of change in life satisfaction in the context of major life events.

Whilst representations of old age and older people in traditional media have been well documented, examinations of such representations within social media discourse are still scarce. This is an unfortunate omission because of the importance of social media for communication in contemporary society. In this study, we combine content analysis and discourse analysis to explore patterns of representation on Twitter around the terms ageing, old age, older people and elderly with a sample of 1,200 tweets. Our analysis shows that ‘personal concerns/views’ and ‘health and social care’ are the predominant overall topics, although some topics are clearly linked with specific keywords. The language often used in the tweets seems to reinforce negative discourses of age and ageing that locate older adults as a disempowered, vulnerable and homogeneous group; old age is deemed a problem and ageing is considered something that needs to be resisted, slowed or disguised. These topics and discursive patterns are indeed similar to those found in empirical studies of social perceptions and traditional media portrayal of old age, which indicates that social media and Twitter in particular appears to serve as an online platform that reproduces and reinforces existing ageist discourses in traditional media that feed into social perceptions of ageing and older people.

Loneliness is a prevalent phenomenon within the older adult population. Previous literature suggests that technology use, specifically internet use, can alleviate loneliness and improve wellbeing. This research study follows 32 people over the age of 65 using a digital technology for six months. A mixed-method approach was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data throughout the time period. The repeated questionnaire measured changes in frequency of use, emotional attachment towards a device, a sense of belonging and perceptions of self-worth, whilst an event-based diary was used to note usages and influences of technology on lifestyle. Results revealed positive relationships between frequency of use and emotional attachment and frequency of use and perceptions of self-worth. There was no significant relationship between frequency of use and a sense of belonging for the aggregate data. There was, however, a negative relationship between emotional attachment towards a device and a sense of belonging, suggesting a fine balance between technology use to improve self-esteem through connections with social networks and an over-dependence on technology that can actually reduce feelings of belonging.

This study has examined the flow of financial transfers between generations in Sweden, measured as financial support in the form of relatively large money transactions or gifts over 12 months. Two questions are considered: is there a net downward flow in the Swedish welfare state and, if so, are there differences according to gender and social class? The questions were tested using data from two linked and nationally representative large-scale surveys. The results show that almost all inter-generational transfers are downward, from older to younger generations. Unlike earlier studies of inter-generational transfers, the analysis focuses on inequality, and the results reveal clear class and income gradients. Both giving and receiving were more common among people in the higher social strata. A gender gradient among unmarried (single) recipients was also found, whereby unmarried women more often received financial support than unmarried men. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of the results for social stratification and inequality. From a static or cross-sectional perspective, the results suggest that financial transfers are neutral or even equality promoting, but a dynamic or lifecourse interpretation suggests that financial transfers transmit or even reinforce class inequalities over generations.

Demographic change means not only that there will be a larger number of very old people in the future, but also that the median age of the population is moving upwards. At the same time, technological, economic and political change has destabilised labour markets. In the face of growing unemployment, and influenced by early retirement policies in some countries, labour market attachment for people in mid and later life, especially men, has been falling. Increasing costs of supporting ‘non-productive’ mid-lifers and looming skill and labour shortages have now led to the promotion of Active Ageing policies. Education for people in mid and later life is central to this approach. A study of almost 1,000 students aged 40 years and over at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, reveals patterns of educational involvement, motives and outcomes, and shows the extent of up-skilling which is taking place. This example illustrates prospects for and challenges to the role of education as part of an Active Ageing approach.

The unprecedented increase in the ageing population, coupled with urbanisation, has led to a vast number of research publications on age-friendly cities and communities (AFCC). However, the existing reviews on AFCC studies are not sufficiently up-to-date for AFCC researchers. This paper presents a thorough analysis of the annual publication trend, the contributions of authors and institutions from different countries, and the trending research themes in the AFCC research corpus through a systematic review of 98 publications. A contribution assessment formula and thematic analysis were used for the review. The results indicated a growing AFCC research interest in recent times. Researchers and institutions from the United States of America, Canada, United Kingdom and Hong Kong made the highest contribution to the AFCC research corpus. The thematic analysis classified the AFCC research corpus into four main themes: conceptualisation; implementation and development; assessment; and challenges and opportunities. The themes indicate the current and future research patterns and issues to be considered in the development of AFCC and for interested researchers to make proposals for future research. Future directions are proposed, including suggestions on adopting new assessment methods and instruments, collaboration and cross-nation comparative research, considering older adults as place-makers and conducting a prior participatory analysis to maximise the participation of older adults.

There is a long history of surveillance of older adults in institutional settings and it is becoming an increasingly common feature of modern society. New surveillance technologies that include activity monitoring, and ubiquitous computing, which are described as ambient assisted living (AAL), are being developed to provide unobtrusive monitoring and support of activities of daily living and to extend the quality and length of time older people can live in their homes. However, concerns have been raised with how these kinds of technologies may affect user's privacy and autonomy. The objectives of this paper are (a) to describe the development of home-based surveillance technologies; (b) to examine how surveillance is being restructured with the use of this technology; and (c) to explore the potential outcomes associated with the adoption of AAL as a means of surveillance by drawing upon the theoretical work of Foucault and Goffman. The discussion suggests that future research needs to consider two key areas beyond the current discourse on technology and ageing, specifically: (a) how the new technology will encroach upon the private lived space of the individual, and (b) how it will affect formal and informal caring relationships. This is critical to ensure that the introduction of AAL does not contribute to the disempowerment of residents who receive this technology.

This paper investigates the modalities of the government of old people in contemporary society by looking critically at current social gerontological discourse and the claims to truth it makes about the experience of growing and being old, and its impact on the cultural economy of old age. Recent theoretical developments in sociology have problematised dominant cultural, social and academic constructions of ageing and the ways in which old people make sense of their ageing selves against these normalising processes. The impact of structural processes on the experience of old age has been highlighted, dominant discursive practices in relation, for instance, to the care of old people have been deconstructed and spaces of resistance have been identified. At the same time, social gerontology has turned its attention to positive or successful ageing and its payback for individual old people and policy-makers. However, because it is embedded in a broader discourse which gives primacy to lifestyles, social and economic opportunities and moral responsibility, successful ageing is an ambiguous project caught between resisting the mask of ageing and reaffirming the continued cultural repression of the declining body and, by extension, of the ageing self. Recent findings from an on-going life history project involving old people who have moved to ‘age-appropriate’ housing will be used to illustrate the extent to which people who are now old have appropriated new forms of regulation.

The present study affirms previous research findings that volunteering satisfies personal needs but goes further by considering the factor of collective identity for volunteers and its consequences for them. The study specifically focused on older volunteers working at zoos. In the initial phase at Central Park Zoo 30 volunteers completed a short self-completion questionnaire. The second phase involved one-on-one interviews with 21 Bronx Zoo volunteers with a collective self-esteem scale. The responses indicated that the volunteers considered the collective identity of zoo volunteer to be important to their self-concept and believed that this identity is held in high public esteem. The results also suggested that identity as a zoo volunteer not only satisfies personal needs, as found by other volunteer studies, but that the collective identity supports external activism based on shared values. It was concluded that the collective environmental identity facilitated by volunteer work at the zoos provides affirmational social support for the volunteers' work as environmental conservation advocates, and enhances their sense of purpose and self-efficacy.

A new theoretical framework for understanding and working with the dementing illnesses of old age is presented, and explicated with particular reference to senile dementia of the Alzheimer type. For several reasons the commonly accepted model, which assumes a simple linear causal relationship between neuropathology and dementia, is inadequate. A more comprehensive model, grounded in a monistic view of the mind-brain relationship, must take into account not only the psychological states that correspond to particular brain states, but also both developmental and pathological aspects of brain structure. Using this we can describe the dementing process, ‘normal’ psychological functioning in old age, pseudodementia and ‘benign senescent forgetfulness’. Further, the scope for some degree of ‘rementia’ is explored.

In this article, we use clothes as a tool for exploring the life stories and narratives of people with dementia, eliciting memories through the sensory and material dimensions of dress. The article draws on an Economic and Social Research Council-funded study, ‘Dementia and Dress’, which explored everyday experiences of clothing for carers, care workers and people with dementia, using qualitative and ethnographic methods including: ‘wardrobe interviews’, observations, and visual and sensory approaches. In our analysis, we use three dimensions of dress as a device for exploring the experiences of people with dementia: kept clothes, as a way of retaining connections to memories and identity; discarded clothes, and their implications for understanding change and loss in relation to the ‘dementia journey’; and absent clothes, invoked through the sensory imagination, recalling images of former selves, and carrying identity forward into the context of care. The article contributes to understandings of narrative, identity and dementia, drawing attention to the potential of material objects for evoking narratives, and maintaining biographical continuity for both men and women. The paper has larger implications for understandings of ageing and care practice; as well as contributing to the wider Material Turn in gerontology, showing how cultural analyses can be applied even to frail older groups who are often excluded from such approaches.

Since the World Health Organization introduced the concept of ‘age-friendly’ communities in 2006, there has been rapidly growing interest in making communities more age-friendly on the part of policy makers world-wide. There is a paucity of research to date, however, that has examined age-friendliness in diverse communities, particularly in rural communities. The main objective of the study reported in this paper was to examine whether age-friendliness varies across community characteristics, such as a population size. The study was based on surveys administered in 56 communities throughout Manitoba, a mid-Western Canadian province, in the context of a needs assessment process for communities that are part of the Age-Friendly Manitoba Initiative. A total of 1,373 individuals completed a survey developed to measure age-friendliness. Domains included the physical environment; housing options; the social environment; opportunities for participation; community supports and health-care services; transportation options; and communication and information. Community characteristics were derived from census data. Multi-level regression analysis indicated that the higher the percentage of residents aged 65 or older, the higher the ratings of age-friendliness overall and, specifically, ratings of the social environment, opportunities for participation, and communication and information. Moreover, small communities located within a census metropolitan area and remote communities in the far north of the province emerged as having the lowest age-friendliness ratings. These findings suggest that communities are generally responsive to the needs of their older residents. That different results were obtained for the various age-friendly domains underscores the importance of considering age-friendliness in a holistic way and measuring it in terms of a range of community features. Our study further highlights the importance of differentiating between degrees of rurality, as different patterns emerged for communities of different sizes and proximity to a larger urban centre.

The purpose of this study was to examine older adults' experiences and perspectives regarding transportation mobility. Using a community-based participatory research approach, residents of Arlington, Texas, age 55 and older, participated in individual interviews (N = 15) or one of six focus groups (N = 45) as part of an overall study about ageing well in a large ethnically diverse city in the United States of America. Thematic analysis was conducted using inductive and deductive qualitative methods and social equity as a sensitising concept. Findings indicate that older adults who are transportation-disadvantaged experience limited access to health care, goods and services and are isolated from familiar lifestyle habits and social networks. Access to affordable, adequate transportation is compromised through social and political forces, which marginalise historically disadvantaged populations. Implications for cross-disciplinary practice and future research on sustainable transportation and policy development are discussed within a social justice and social equity framework.

This study considers changes in child care by grandparents between 1992 and 2006 in relation to changes in mothers' need for and grandparents' opportunity to provide child care. Data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam are used to compare two cohorts of Dutch grandparents aged 58–68 (N1992=181; N2006=350). Multi-level regression analysis shows that the probability that grandparents care for their adult daughters' children (N1992=261; N2006=484) increased from 0.23 to 0.41. The increase can be ascribed to higher maternal employment rates, growth in single motherhood, reduced travel time and a decline in the number of adult children. The increase would have been higher if the employment rate of grandparents had not risen.

This paper examined the relationships between family relations and life satisfaction between the two groups of older people with different hukous in Putian, Fujian, China. Five factors related to family relations: family support network, satisfaction with family support, family harmony, filial support and filial discrepancy, were included in the study. A total of 532 valid questionnaires, 263 and 269 being filled in by older people with agricultural and non-agricultural hukous, respectively, were obtained. Bivariate analyses indicated that five factors were correlated significantly with life satisfaction for both groups of older people. The results of hierarchical regression analyses showed that when controlling for socio-demographic variables, filial support was associated with life satisfaction for both groups of older people; satisfaction with family support and filial discrepancy was only associated with life satisfaction among older people with agricultural hukous; family harmony only contributed to explaining life satisfaction among older people with non-agricultural hukous. The present study confirmed some previous empirical findings, which indicated the importance of family relations to older people's lives, and extended our understanding about the correlates of life satisfaction for the two groups of older people with different hukous in China. Limitations and direction of future studies were also addressed. Meanwhile, the policy and practice implications of the study were discussed in the context of China's social and economic changes.

Retirement is characterised as a dynamic process that has several different outcomes, from early retirement to re-entry to the labour force. Recent studies of the Dutch population show that a substantial number of early retirees re-enter the workforce after early retirement, but others do not succeed even though they want to return to paid work. An often-named reason for their failures is bias in the selection process. This raises the questions as to what restrictions do early retirees face in the labour market and what are the characteristics that enhance or limit their hiring chances? The aim of this study was to identify the individual and organisational characteristics that influence managers' hiring decisions, and for the purpose a vignette study among Dutch managers and business students was conducted. Profiles of hypothetical early retirees were presented to the respondents who were then asked to make decisions whether of not to employ the individual. The results show that hiring early retirees is of low priority to both managers and students, and depends to a large extent on organisational factors (such as personnel shortages) and the age of the retiree. The findings suggest that despite equal opportunities policies, age discrimination is still present on the Dutch labour market and that managers generally hinder the re-employment of workers approaching the retirement age.