Many older people live with a range of chronic diseases. However, these diseases do not necessarily impede an active lifestyle. In this article the author analyses the relation between the active ageing discourse and the way older people at two Danish activity centres handle disease. How does active ageing change everyday life with chronic disease, and how do older people combine an active life with a range of chronic diseases? The participants in the study use activities to keep their diseases at arm's length, and this distancing of disease at the same time enables them to engage in social and physical activities at the activity centre. In this way, keeping disease at arm's length is analysed as an ambiguous health strategy. The article shows the importance of looking into how active ageing is practised, as active ageing seems to work well in the everyday life of the older people by not giving emphasis to disease. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork and uses vignettes of four participants to show how they each keep diseases at arm's length.

Using social capital and social exchange theories, this investigation examined ethnic variation in patterns of social exchange in two heterogeneous racial groups, Blacks and Whites in the United States, and the effects of education and income on these patterns. The sample was 1,043 people aged 65–86 years from four ethnic groups (US-born European-Americans, immigrant Russians/Ukrainians, US-born African-Americans, and immigrant English-speaking Caribbeans) who had provided details of their instrumental and advice exchanges with kin and non-kin. Hierarchical multinomial logistic regressions were used to predict patterns of social exchange, variations by ethnicity, income and education, and the interactions. Ethnic differences in patterns of social exchange were found, but almost all were qualified by interactions. Those with income showed within-group heterogeneity: African-Americans and Russians/Ukrainians with higher income were more likely to engage in reciprocal instrumental kin exchange, whereas among English-speaking Caribbeans and European-Americans such exchanges were not associated with income. Unlike among European-Americans and English-speaking Caribbeans, Russians/Ukrainians with higher income and education were more likely to engage in reciprocal non-kin exchange. The findings suggest that ethnic variation in social exchange reflects both aspects of ethnic group membership and the relational context, as well as the enactment of reciprocity values in varying resource contexts.

Population ageing is a global trend that affects individual life plans, family arrangements, market structures, care provisions and pension schemes. We combine insights from demography and lifecourse research to understand better the causes of population ageing. Demography explains population ageing by describing changes in fertility, mortality and migration rates. Lifecourse research argues that these rates are interconnected because they are embedded in the lifecourses of individuals. An individual's experiences at an early age can influence behaviours at a later age, thereby creating continuity throughout the lifecourse. Additionally, lifecourse research underlines that social networks – such as families – and countries influence lifecourse. Thus, historical events and past experiences have already set the course for today's demographic changes. Moreover, the effects of policies that strive to influence population ageing will not be evident for years or even decades to come. This paper introduces a conceptual framework that explains how the lifecourse perspective can be applied to the phenomenon of population ageing and illustrates the framework through a case study of Germany. The case study highlights that insights from the micro-, meso- and macro-levels need to be combined to achieve a deeper understanding of population ageing. Scholars can use the framework presented in this paper as a guideline for merging arguments from demography and lifecourse research in future studies.

I wrote a newspaper article describing a branch of the University of the Third Age (U3A). It was given the sub-title ‘It keeps us young’ by the editor without my knowledge or consent. I objected on the grounds that it gave a totally misleading impression of the nature and purpose of the U3A, one which may lead people to suppose that members were striving to be ‘young’. This experience raised the question of the language used to describe those in the Third Age, a controversy in which a number of contemporary gerontologists are involved. It is suggested that some writers are reinforcing the concept of ‘the Ghost in the Machine’ that is commonly held by many lay people, and this leads to confusion about self-identity among those in later life. It is argued that elderly people will be able to map out strategies for successful ageing only if they come to terms with accepting themselves as being old. Longstanding ageist prejudice has tended to create a negative aura surrounding words such as ‘elderly’ and such words need to be rehabilitated.

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.

During the early 1960s, Norbert Elias led a research project on the adjustment of young workers to work situations and adult roles. The data from this project, which consisted of 851 interviews with young people, were recently rediscovered and the participants, now approaching retirement, were re-interviewed as part of a restudy. In this paper we argue, that, in the context of the dramatic changes to the transition to retirement that have taken place in the United Kingdom, it is possible to use Elias's unpublished work on the transition to work as a theoretical framework for understanding of the transition from work and to retirement. In particular, we focus on the themes of fantasy and reality in the perception of retirement; changing interdependencies in the transition to retirement and the extent and impact of retirement preparation on the perception of the change in status from full-time worker to retiree. We conclude by suggesting that the implied advantages of being the ‘baby-boomer’ generation are far from the reality, with the experiences of this group being similar to those who have gone before and face an adjustment to retirement marked by uncertainty and anxiety.

The number and relative proportion of older Native people in Canada are both increasing rapidly. So also is a social problems discourse asserting that informal care of older Native people by family and kin is traditional, and highly appropriate today. However, neither this discourse nor previous research satisfactorily address the informal care requirements of older Native people nor the gendered implications that high levels of informal care provision may have for Native caregivers. Informal care is provided to Canada's non-Native elderly people primarily by resident wives and non-resident daughters, and secondarily by husbands and sons. Data from the pan-provincial Alberta Native Seniors Study demonstrate that Native people aged 50 or more have comparatively high overall care requirements. Older Native Albertans are poor, and make extensive use of some government income support programmes. They also make moderate use of medical services. Extensive dependence on informal care, institutional barriers and local service unavailability lead Native seniors to under-utilise other formal programmes aimed generically at the older provincial population. Native seniors are much more likely to live with kin than are other Canadians. Informal care appears equally available to older women and men, and is provided chiefly by resident daughters, sons and spouses, and by non-resident daughters, sisters and sons. Extensive elderly caregiving requirements may impose a growing, double burden on many, who are also providing care for dependent children. Without further support, current and future requirements may significantly limit the options of caregiving women and men.

In a paper in the January issue of this volume of Ageing & Society, Eric Midwinter argued that ‘much can be learned from re-drawing the demographic map with social rather than chronological contours’. This opinion reflects a widespread view among social gerontologists that chronological age is an ‘empty’ variable, even though it is central to the construction of social identities, both in bureaucratic contexts and in less formal social interaction. This paper draws on material stored in the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex, England. A large panel of ‘ordinary people’ was asked to write about ‘growing older’ in 1992 and about ‘birthdays’ in 2002. An analysis of the ways in which they revealed their age demonstrates that the revelation of chronological age is unproblematic in certain contexts that are deemed appropriate. Difficulties arise as a result of the association of age with various more nebulous statuses such as ‘middle-aged’ and ‘old’. The implications for the concept of ‘the third age’ are discussed and it is concluded that social gerontology should pay more attention to the theoretical significance of chronological age and age-identity and less to age statuses.

Many have presumed that in developing countries, contact with children is beneficial to older people's wellbeing, and particularly that women receive more support from children than men because of their lifelong commitment to family responsibilities. This study questions these stylised notions through an analysis of 22 life histories of older women and men living in a district with high rates of social exclusion in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It focuses on the subjective accounts of relationships with children and grandchildren and their influence on current wellbeing. The life histories reveal complex lived experiences and the significance of key events. The informants speak of the anxiety and harm caused by struggling children, about problems of remote relations with successful children, and of the insecurity of the neighbourhood. The analysis contrasts a materialistic interpretation of the influence of children on older people's wellbeing with the informants' more holistic evaluation of family relationships. By applying a life-course framework, we demonstrate that children may be a key source of vulnerability for older people, that the gendering of parent-child relations and later-life wellbeing is nuanced, that both local and national conditions influence relationships with specific children, with implications for the intergenerational transmission of wellbeing.

Recognition of the greater capacity of older women to draw on supportive social networks has now supplemented an earlier focus of research into gender and ageing which portrayed older men as a ‘privileged gerontocracy’ because of their greater access to financial resources and spousal care. This study of the experiences of cancer among people of three different age groups conducted a comparative keyword analysis of their narratives to consider the gender differentiation of a third resource: access to medical information and personnel. The analysed narratives were sampled from a large archive of research interviews. It was found that older men with cancer demonstrated a greater involvement with medicine as an expert system than younger men or women or older women. This stemmed from their social confidence when interacting with doctors and their interest in treating their illness as a ‘problem’ to be fixed with medico-scientific solutions. Compared with younger men and women of all ages, older men were less likely to draw on informal social and family networks for support, or to discuss in a direct style the emotional dimension of illness experience. Our findings contrast with other studies that have reported linguistic disadvantage in older people in elderly care settings, which underlines the importance of context for linguistic studies.

Despite sociological understanding that bodies are social and morphological, material and discursive, there is a persistent, prevailing tendency within sociology to approach the old body – particularly in ‘deep old age’ – as non-social. No longer amenable either to reflexive (consumerist) choice, or expressive of the self, it is viewed rather through a biomedical explanatory framework in which it is held to succumb to ‘natural’ physiological processes of decline that lie outside culture. This paper critically questions such assumptions which it links to sociology's acquiescing in modernity's age ideology rather than taking it as a starting point for critique. This means that sociology's sensitivity towards ageing is displayed not in challenging models of the older body but in diverting attention away from the body altogether and focusing on structural and cultural determinants which are not considered to encompass physiology. Arguing, however, that biology and society do not exist on separate plains, and that the body in deep old age is, like other bodies, first and foremost a social body, the paper draws upon feminist methodology and epistemology for the purpose of dismantling such essentialism. It suggests that the sociological imagination will benefit from the eradication of age ideology through a clearer understanding not just of ageing but of embodiment at all stages of the lifecourse.

The impact of losing a limb in military service extends well beyond initial recovery and rehabilitation, with long-term consequences and challenges requiring health-care commitments across the lifecourse. This paper presents a systematic review of the current state of knowledge regarding the long-term impact of ageing and limb-loss in military veterans. Key databases were systematically searched including: ASSIA, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Medline, Web of Science, PsycArticles/PsychInfo, ProQuest Psychology and ProQuest Sociology Journals, and SPORTSDiscus. Empirical studies which focused on the long-term impact of limb-loss and/or health-care requirements in veterans were included. The search process revealed 30 papers relevant for inclusion. These papers focused broadly on four themes: (a) long-term health outcomes, prosthetics use and quality of life; (b) long-term psycho-social adaptation and coping with limb-loss; (c) disability and identity; and (d) estimating the long-term costs of care and prosthetic provision. Findings present a compelling case for ensuring the long-term care needs and costs of rehabilitation for older limbless veterans are met. A dearth of information on the lived experience of limb-loss and the needs of veterans’ families calls for further research to address these important issues.

In the United States, much attention has recently been directed to the issue of whether the welfare system has become over-generous to the retired population, at the expense of families with children. The proportion of the US elderly population living in poverty has fallen significantly in the last fifteen years while the number of poor children has increased rapidly, and it has been suggested that this lack of investment in the next generation of workers may have disastrous longterm consequences for the U.S. economy. This paper considers whether similar trends are evident in Britain. It reviews data on the poverty and income of the elderly population, and finds little unequivocal evidence of relative economic gain over the last two decades, although it is clear that many children have suffered from the recent rise in unemployment-induced poverty. It also looks at direct public expenditure on the elderly through both the pension and the health and personal social services systems, and finds no evidence of a transfer of public resources away from children and towards the elderly population. The paper concludes that the British welfare state has been remarkably neutral in its allocation of resources between generations, and that, in the British context, any discussion of inter-generational conflict for welfare resources establishes a false dichotomy, because economic inequality within broad age groups is much greater than inequality between age groups.

This paper introduces the Special Issue of four empirical studies on the provision of family support to older people that have been written members of the Family Support for Older People: Determinants and Consequences (FAMSUP) network. They have in common the use of individual-level data and recognition of the importance of demographic forces, cultural variations and public policy in shaping patterns of elder care. The four papers are also explicitly comparative, and emphasise both between- and within-country differences. The European countries examined by the FAMSUP researchers exhibit several broadly similar demographic trends, but these are superimposed on very different policy regimes. The ‘macro’ focus of much comparative policy-oriented research facilitates the identification and description of population ageing, while illuminating the policy issues raised by demographic change. A macro-focus is also characteristic of much comparative welfare-state analysis. The ‘micro’ orientation of the research presented in this collection typically treats the policy environment as an implicit or residual category. We argue that progress in understanding comparative patterns of elder care, and in developing policy responses to demographic change, will be facilitated through blending the macro and micro perspectives, in which variations in the policy environment are explicitly linked to individual- and family-level behaviour.

The frail and homebound older adult populations currently experience difficulties accessing primary care in the medical office. Given this fundamental access to care problem, and the questionable care quality that arises when navigating a labyrinthine health-care system, these populations have typically been subject to inadequate primary care. To meet their needs better, growing research stresses the importance of providing comprehensive home-based primary care (HBPC), delivered by an inter-professional team of health-care providers. Family care-givers typically provide the majority of care within the home, yet their perceptions of HBPC remain under-researched. The purpose of this study was to explore unpaid care-givers' perceptions of and experiences with HBPC programmes in Toronto, Canada. We conducted qualitative inductive content analysis, using analytic procedures informed by grounded theory, to discover a number of themes regarding unpaid care-givers' understandings of HBPC. Findings suggest that, compared to the standard office-based care model, HBPC may better support unpaid care-givers, providing them assistance with system navigation and offering them the peace of mind that they are not alone, but have someone to call should the need arise. The implications of this research suggest that HBPC could be a model to help mitigate the discontinuities in care that patients with comorbid chronic conditions and their attendant unpaid care-givers experience when accessing fragmented health, home and social care systems.

Older consumers have long been the ‘invisible majority’ in advertising despite the rapid increase in an ageing population. A significant proportion of this population have high levels of disposable income, even in times of recession, but advertisers are not encouraging them to part with it. This paper intends to find out why advertisers have been slow or struggle to target older consumers effectively. The aims of this study are two-fold. First, it explores the portrayal and representation of older consumers in Tesco's ‘Dotty’ campaign and Marks & Spencer's (M&S) ‘Twiggy’ campaign, with special reference to the use of celebrities. The second aim is to demonstrate how the focus has shifted from the more traditional, negative stereotyping (Tesco campaign) to a more progressive approach, presenting aspirational images that older consumers can identify with (M&S campaign). Although both campaigns were effective in terms of increasing profits, this paper suggests that the ongoing M&S example of using older celebrities in advertising campaigns demonstrates a more effective creative strategy that is in tune not only with a growing population of older consumers but is also especially applicable in times of economic uncertainty.

Community programmes have been shown to provide social and emotional benefits for older adults. The vast majority of community programmes for older adults are either mixed-sex or female-oriented in their activities and composition. As such, there is a scarcity of both opportunities for, and research focusing on older male adults’ participation in community programmes geared towards men. The present study describes the experiences of older male adults throughout their involvement in a male-oriented community programme. Participants described their involvement in the community programme on the basis of their characteristics and experiences that preceded their involvement, the characteristics of their current involvement, and aspects of the programme and their participation that promoted their continued involvement. The findings of this study have potential utility for community organisations aiming to increase the involvement of older men in their programmes. Furthermore, the findings indicate that community programme participation has the potential to promote social engagement and healthy, active ageing among older men.

This article introduces the seven specially commissioned papers in this special issue of Ageing & Society from the projects funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council's Growing Older Programme. The ESRC Programme has been the largest single investment in social sciences research on ageing in the United Kingdom. It comprised 24 projects and, when operating at full capacity, 96 researchers. The article details the background to the Programme, its commissioning process, its eventual structure and how it operated. Then a selection is made of some of the ways in which the Programme has contributed new knowledge to social gerontology. No attempt is made to achieve comprehensive coverage of the Programme's topics but rather a selection is presented of the new insights generated under its six themes: defining and measuring quality of life, inequalities in quality of life, technology and the built environment, healthy and active ageing, family and support networks, and participation and activities in later life. The projects were spread unevenly across these themes but important new knowledge has been produced under each theme. The conclusion emphasises the scientific contribution of the Programme and especially the extent to which older people's own attitudes, aspirations and preferences have been at the forefront, but it questions whether or not policy makers and practitioners will use this major evidence base.

Excess winter morbidity and mortality among older people remain significant public health issues in those European countries which experience relatively mild winter temperatures, particularly the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, Portugal and Spain. In the UK, episodes of severe winter weather, when ambient temperatures fall below 5° C, are associated with peaks in general practitioner consultations, hospital admissions, and cardiovascular deaths among those aged over 65. While research indicates that such health risks could be substantially reduced by the adoption of appropriate behavioural strategies, accessible and credible advice on how older people can reduce risk during ‘cold snaps’ is lacking. This paper describes a programme of research that aimed: (a) to translate the relevant scientific literature into practical advice for older people in order to reduce health risk during episodes of severe winter weather; and (b) to integrate this advice with a severe winter weather ‘Early Warning System’ developed by the UK Met Office. An advice booklet was generated through a sequential process of systematic review, consensus development, and focus group discussions with older people. In a subsequent field trial, a combination of the Met Office ‘Early Warning System’ and the advice booklet produced behavioural change among older people consistent with risk reduction. The results also show that long-held convictions about ‘healthy environments’ and anxieties about fuel costs are barriers to risk reduction.

How do we experience ageing, how do we interpret changes in our lives and what do we say about the passage of time? The aim of this paper is to present longitudinal evidence about the personal and social significance of birthdays in adult life and, in particular, how birthdays contribute to a sense of ageing. The primary source of data is the Mass-Observation Archive at the University of Sussex. Members of its panel of ‘ordinary’ people living in the United Kingdom were in 1990 invited to write anonymously about celebrations, and in 2002 they were invited to write more specifically on the topic of birthdays. A total of 120 accepted both invitations and 55 included accounts of their last birthday in both submissions. As a consequence, it is possible to compare what they wrote on the two occasions and how this reflects their unfolding experience and changing feelings about age. The analysis reveals the personal salience of the date of a birthday and of continuity in how birthdays are celebrated. Who remembers birthdays and who participates in their celebration reflect the generational structure of families and age-related patterns of friendship. Birthdays are used to celebrate collective continuity more than individual change.