Social resources – close relationships, support exchange and social engagement – can play an important role in successful adjustment to widowhood in later life. However, it is not clear whether access to, and the utilisation of, social resources are different for men and women during late-life widowhood. This study provides a qualitative exploration of the experience of social resources in the lives of older widowed men and women across the transition to widowhood (from pre-widowhood to later widowhood). Using a life course theory lens, in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 men and women who had been widowed in later life. The interview data were analysed using the framework approach. Four phases in the transition to widowhood were identified: ‘Illness and caring’, ‘Relocation and separation’, ‘Early bereavement’ and ‘Life goes on’. Widowhood brings great change to the accessibility and utilisation of social resources, and each of these transitional phases was associated with differential usage of these resources. Gender differences were observed in the availability of social resources across the transition to widowhood, with widowed men typically found to have smaller friendship networks, receive less support and be at increased risk of social isolation. Particular attention is required to ensure that all older widowed men and women have access to sufficient social support and contact following bereavement.

As the ageing population in China continues to grow, more people will be living with long-term health conditions and require support from family care-givers. This scoping review therefore aims to explore sources of stress and coping mechanisms adopted by care-givers of older relatives living with long-term conditions in mainland China. Literature searches were conducted in English (CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and SCOPUS) and Chinese (CNKI, WANFANG DATA, CQVIP and CBM) databases between October and November 2019. The searches focused on the stressors and coping mechanisms utilised by family care-givers residing in the community. Narrative synthesis was used to identify themes within the data. Forty-six papers were included: 20 papers from English and 26 from Chinese databases. Six themes captured stressors: care-giving time (N = 22), financial resources (N = 17), role and personal strains (N = 42), preparedness (N = 4), social roles (N = 10) and lack of adequate formal support (N = 22); and one theme captured coping (N = 14). Unmet needs of care-givers of older relatives in mainland China were found to be extensive. Only a few studies had attempted to explore the causal link between stressors, coping and the influence of culture. Findings underscore the significance of adequately capturing intricacies around care-givers’ unmet needs, rather than generalising on the basis of culture. Qualitative studies are critical to providing a better understanding of the relationship between stressors, coping and resources afforded to care-givers by their cultural environment. Having such understanding is crucial to inform the development of competent care, which promotes self-efficacy and self-actualisation in care-givers in mainland China.

The aim of the study was to examine Scottish private sector employers' policies with regard to flexible working arrangements for carers of physically and mentally impaired older people. The questions addressed by this study were as follows : (1) Are employers aware of the needs of carers? (2) To what extent do they view carers' needs or responsibilities as problematic? (3) What proportion of companies have specific policies regarding flexible working arrangements to accommodate carers' responsibilities? (4) What is the ‘nature’ of these policies? (5) Are flexible policies with regard to caregiving responsibilities viewed by companies as part of ‘health promotion’ in the workplace? (6) In what ways do company characteristics influence policy on carers' responsibilities?, and (7) What, if any, initiatives have been adopted to help employees plan for caregiving responsibilities? One thousand questionnaires were sent to companies drawn from the Scottish Chamber of Commerce National Directory 1993; 32 per cent were returned completed and in time for analysis. The majority (92 per cent) of companies had never previously considered the issue of employees' elder care responsibilities. Although expressing considerable sympathy, as well as some responsiveness and flexibility with regard to working arrangements for caregiving employees, the results of the survey indicate that Scottish companies in the private sector are providing little in the way of direct or indirect support to the UK community care reforms. However, informal contacts during the project indicated that the public and voluntary sectors may be more flexible and have begun to develop specific policies with regard to the needs of caregiving employees.

Little is known about the effects of informal care-giving on employees' absenteeism due to illness. This paper therefore provides a longitudinal analysis of the consequences of taking on informal care-giving for men's and women's working hours and workplace absenteeism due to illness. Data were taken from the Dutch Labour Supply Panel (waves 2004–2018); 495 of the 6,452 male observations in this panel and 696 of the 5,961 female observations had taken on informal care-giving. It was tested whether respondents who became (intensive) informal carers were more likely than respondents who remained non-care-givers to reduce their work hours or stop working between waves t and t1, or to be absent from work due to illness in wave t1. (Multinomial) logistic regression analyses showed that taking on informal care reduced women's working hours when the care they provided was intensive, but not men's. The predicted probability of women reducing their work hours was 12 per cent if they had remained non-care-givers between waves t and t1, 15 per cent if they had started giving non-intensive care and 19 per cent if they had begun providing intensive help. In addition, starting to provide (non-intensive) informal care increased the risk of workplace absenteeism among both women and men. The study highlights the need for workplace policies that prevent female carers from reducing their work hours, and enable male and female carers to continue working in a healthy way.

We explored identity formation among nine gay men who were born between 1946 and 1964. This group of nine was the largest homogeneous sub-group within a larger sample (N = 18). Although participants share similar demographic characteristics, their individual social, personal and narrative identities diverge to represent distinctive embodied selves. Guided by queer and feminist theories, the qualitative analysis identified dominant and counter-narratives that demonstrate the complexity of sexual identity as it evolves over time. All nine men recall being aware of their gay identity as children; however, like many socially constructed labels, their outward identity was more complex and difficult to understand. The findings demonstrate how participants negotiated their sexual identities through decades of social change. As illustrated within each subset of identity (i.e. social, personal and narrative), some participants found themselves breaking ground for a broader gay rights social movement, while others described their experience of being relegated to silence and invisibility for most of their lives. This research contributes to an ongoing discussion concerning the individuality found among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals in later life. As the LGBT population becomes more visible, there will be a growing need to understand the individualism that exists within this coalition and affirm their diversifying sexual and gender identities.

Socio-relational aspects are essential for mental wellbeing (MWB), especially in the oldest old age. Our study aims to explore the socio-relational aspects related to MWB in accordance with the experiences of the oldest old of four European countries; and to examine how these differ between Mediterranean and Nordic people. A total of 117 participants aged 80+ years old were recruited, and 23 focus groups were performed. Qualitative content analysis identified five main themes. Family seemed to be the most important driver of the MWB of the oldest old, followed by relationships with close friends. Participants felt better when they had a sense of being needed, cared for, and connected. Loneliness and isolation negatively affected MWB, although solitude was appreciated. Differences appeared between Mediterranean and Nordic regions. Initiatives to promote positive interactions with family and friends, as well as social activities within the community, may contribute to strengthening MWB in the oldest old.

Older people became a highly visible force in the American politics of the 1930s. The Townsend organisation mobilised one tenth of the U.S. elderly population prior to their direct representation in the polity as an interest group. This article utilises several theoretical social movement models to analyse how and why mobilisation occurred. It demonstrates that many factors, including phenomena associated with the social dimension of age, influenced the mechanisms of mobilisation and the movement's shape. Characteristics of this cohort of older people, including its size, life expectancy, spatial distribution, shared traditions, and symbolic frameworks were conducive to club formation and mobilisation. The period event of the Depression also triggered collective action, by exacerbating trends of changing old-age institutional supports. But the organisation expanded most where it channelled inducements to participants and evoked the cohorts' symbolic frameworks and ideals. Mobilisation also occurred within a political environment, the national stage of U.S. politics, where non-represented interest groups (such as elderly people) find it difficult to receive benefits.

Internationally, 1 per cent of the general population are living with an intellectual disability and life expectancy is increasing in line with global trends. The majority of people with an intellectual disability live with family. This represents a growing and largely ‘hidden’ population who have, or will have, additional needs as they and their family age. There is limited research about what is important for people with intellectual disability when thinking about getting older. This article reports on a study which explored the concept of ageing and future aspirations with 19 people living with an intellectual disability, aged 37–58 years of age (mean 48 years) and living with someone they identify as family. Using Charmaz's constructivist grounded theory approach and photo-elicitation, constant comparative analysis generated four themes: reciprocating relationships, emerging (in)dependence, configuring ageing and entertaining possibilities. As part of the interview process, photo-elicitation facilitated the expression of associations and perspectives about ageing and conceptualising the future for participants. The findings demonstrate the engagement of people with intellectual disabilities in research and provided unique insights into both their experiences and perspectives on ageing in the context of family. The need for greater flexibility in service planning and delivery are identified, alongside ensuring the meaningful inclusion of people with intellectual disability in decision-making about their own lives as they age.

Public policies that provide incentives for higher middle-income people to purchase private long-term care insurance (LTCI) have been proposed as a way to shield large numbers of middle-income people from the risk of needing costly long-term care. A proposal to promote purchases of private LTCI that has gained modest traction in the United States of America is the Partnership Program. The structure and public–private nature of the Partnership Programs are reviewed along with the trends in sales of both regular private LTCI policies and Partnership LTCI policies to show that both experienced low purchase rates. Implementation efforts for the Partnership Programs were very modest, in part because many were launched when the Affordable Care Act was passed. At the same time, several well-known insurers withdrew from selling private LTCI. Understanding why the Partnership Program is not a success provides lessons for other counties interested in creating similar public–private ventures.

Drawing on a recently completed longitudinal research project with 96 participants aged 55+, the paper provides insight into the challenges of carrying out ethical practices when engaged in longer-term research relationships with older people. It builds on a body of work that purposely records in detail the ethical dilemmas researchers face, the options available to them and the rationale guiding their reaction. The Co-Motion research, led by the University of York, examined the impact of major later-life transitions on mobility and wellbeing, and was therefore focused on times of change that were, for some participants, accompanied by suffering. Over three years, the project used a range of methods to explore with each individual the dynamic nature of lived experience: change, continuity, endurance, transition and causality. The paper addresses the negotiation of informed consent over the life of long-term research relationships; the ‘care work’ involved; contested understandings of vulnerability; and the need for ongoing ethical reflection. The paper concludes by calling for greater reflexivity and suggests a more participant-focused approach to ethics in the field, demanding both greater self-awareness from researchers and allowing the participants to have greater voice in the research processes.

Ageing itself abolishes neither the need nor the capacity for sexual activity. A number of studies confirm the continuance of sexual activity in old age. Normal physiological changes with age affect erectile function and ejaculation in males, and the vaginal tissue in females. Psychological and social factors that affect sexual function in old age include the individual's degree of sexual activity throughout earlier life, the psychological resiliency in adapting to the altered physiological conditions, demographic factors, and society's attitudes towards sex in old age. Furthermore, pathologies that are more prevalent among the elderly can interfere with sexual function.

Research investigating the association between women's work–family trajectories and their retirement intentions is limited. Studies considering how different institutional conditions affect this association are even more limited. To fill this gap, we use the first three waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, 2004–2009, and apply two-level random effects models with country-level fixed effects to a sample of mothers aged 50–64 years. Our dependent variable is the intention to retire as early as possible. We found that the following two different mechanisms are associated with mothers' early retirement intentions: (a) strategies to compensate for opportunity costs and (b) work attachment. When all other factors are equal, mothers with a work career characterised by interruptions and part-time work intend to work longer than other mothers, indicating the need to compensate for lower lifelong earnings at older ages. Some compensatory strategies are also observed among mothers who are classified as ‘never married’, ‘divorced’ or ‘widowed’, who wish to continue their careers. In other cases, evidence supporting work attachment mechanisms is found; for instance, working when the youngest child is younger than six years predicts the intention to delay retirement. These results change according to the welfare regime, underlining the importance of family policies and pension benefits to counterbalance the effect of opportunity costs on mothers' earnings.

In this study, four models used for assessing the influence of lifecourse financial strains on later-life health (the latent period effects, pathway, social mobility and accumulative effects models) were tested in the context of Japan by using different types of health indicators: comorbidity, disabled activities of daily living, disabled cognitive function, self-rated health and depressive symptoms. We hypothesised that suitable models for describing the influence of financial strain would differ according to the type of health indicator used. Participants aged 60–92 years (N = 2,500) were obtained in 2012 by using a two-stage stratified random sampling method. The final number of participants in the sample was 1,324. The results indicate that three models – pathway, accumulative effects and social mobility – describe the influence of a person's lifecourse financial strain on comorbidity, cognitive function, self-rated health and depressive symptoms. In turn, the latent period effects model explains the influence of lifecourse financial strain on comorbidity. However, only the pathway model described the influence of lifecourse financial strain on activities of daily living. These results suggest that disadvantages in lifecourse socio-economic status influence the decline of health in elderly Japanese people, similar to people in Western countries. However, the finding that suitable models for describing the influence of socio-economic status on health will differ according to the type of health indicator is an original contribution of this study.

Due to the growing elderly population, adult children care-givers (ACCs) are increasingly providing complex care for one or both elderly parents. Social support from similar peers can mitigate care-giving-related health declines. To date, ‘peer similarity’ amongst care-givers has been predominantly investigated in the context of peer-matching interventions. However, because peer similarity is especially influential in ‘naturally occurring’ support networks, care-givers' everyday peer support engagement warrants further attention. Our goal was to explore care-givers' everyday peer support engagement and the influence of peer similarity on support perceptions. We employed a mixed-method design using Web-based surveys and in-depth qualitative interviews. The quantitative data were analysed using a hierarchical multiple while qualitative data were thematically analysed. Seventy-one ACCs completed the online questionnaire and 15 participated in a telephone interview. Peer similarity was positively and significantly associated with perceived support (β = 0.469, p < 0.0005) and explained 18.5 per cent of the additional variance. ACCs' narratives suggested the most important aspect of similarity was ‘shared care-giving experience’ as it optimised the support received from peers, and also enhanced the quality of the relationship. In conclusion, both data-sets underscored that peer similarity importantly influences support perceptions. The importance of ‘shared care-giving experience’ suggests that a more comprehensive understanding of this concept is needed to optimise peer-matching endeavours. Peer similarity's influence on relationship quality should also be explored.

The concept of épreuve, literally translated as ‘challenge’, was developed by the French sociologist Danilo Martuccelli, who was inspired by Sartre's existential philosophy, phenomenological sociology and its concern for analysing modern experiences, and Charles Wright Mills’ conviction that it is necessary to relate personal problems to the social structures that generate or amplify them. The concept has been used in the sociology of ageing in France to characterise the épreuve of ageing and four domains of épreuve have been identified: activities, identity, autonomy and relationship to the world. This paper applies this template to a corpus of 27 interviews with people at mild to moderate stages of Alzheimer's disease, in order to characterise the épreuve of ageing with the disease. The épreuve of ageing during the earlier stages of the disease is similar to the experience of people who age without a cognitive disorder. However, as the disease progresses the analysis reveals that it tends to exacerbate issues: identity seems especially threatened, simultaneously raising the question of self-presentation and self-definition; although most interviewees strive to retain autonomy, a few delegate it to a close confidante with whom they build a relationship of strong dependence; and weakened communication accentuates the feeling that the world is foreign and strange.

This review updated a previous review [Gaugler JE (2005) Family involvement in residential long-term care: a synthesis and critical review. Aging and Mental Health 9, 105–118] and focused on dementia. Fourteen years of development in family involvement with care homes following placement of a relative was explored. The review aimed to investigate two questions: (1) What types of involvement do families have with care homes following placement of people living with dementia? (2) Which factors influence family involvement with care homes? PsycINFO, MEDLINE and CINAHL Plus were searched for publications between January 2005 and December 2018. Thirty-three papers representing 30 studies were included. Papers were appraised using a quality rating tool designed for use with mixed study designs. Studies were of a reasonable quality though some weaknesses included single-site samples, high attrition rates and poor reporting. Twenty-eight papers highlighted types of involvement including collaboration, family–staff relationship development, decision making and visiting. Twenty-five papers pertained to factors influencing involvement, which included outcome of care quality evaluation, wish for recognition and sense of integration into the care team. Type of family involvement has changed over time with increased emphasis on families’ desire for partnership, to be active rather than passive advocates, and to focus on care monitoring and evaluation. Seven themes of family involvement activities are featured and a non-linear process is proposed. When compared to patient and family-centred care principles, an analysis of family involvement types found good fit overall and potential for framework improvements. Over 30 diverse factors influence inter-family variation in the level and nature of family involvement. Consideration of these factors and resolution of the gaps in evidence, including intergenerational and cultural concerns, can improve care home facilitation of family participation. This dementia-specific review is a comprehensive timely complement to Gaugler's seminal work about older adults in care.

There exist three pension systems for urban older residents in China: the pension for government and public institutions (PGPI), the worker's old-age insurance for enterprise employees (WOI) and the urban residents’ social pension insurance (URSPI). This study examines how this multi-track pension system relates to older urbanites’ life satisfaction. The ordered logistic regression model was fitted to analyse the urban sample of the China Longitudinal Ageing Social Survey (60+ years), a nationwide representative survey collected in 2014. The mediation analyses were further adopted to investigate the potential formative mechanisms. A significantly higher level of life satisfaction was detected for those who receive PGPI benefits relative to those who have access to URSPI and WOI, but no significant difference is detected between URSPI and WOI. Further analyses suggest that the advantage of PGPI in terms of life satisfaction is mediated not through monetary resources, but through the dispositional factor of perceived self-value for the society. This study suggests that different institutional configurations of the pension system stratify older urbanites’ subjective wellbeing by virtue of factors that are associated with people's capabilities of acting and functioning.

Retirement timing can have important health implications. Little is known, however, about older adults’ views on this issue and whether they consider it better to retire later, earlier, on time or anytime. This knowledge gap about older adults’ views is particularly true outside North America and Europe. This qualitative study aims to examine older Chileans’ ideas about the relationship between retirement timing and health and to explore gender and class patterns in qualitative themes identified, knowledge which may strengthen quantitative population-based approaches. Framework analysis was conducted on qualitative accounts from a purposive, non-random sample of 40 older Chileans in six focus groups, stratified by gender and class as marked by lifetime occupation. Transcriptions were coded by two independent reviewers (inter-coder reliability = 81%) according to four deductive categories of retirement timing as well as inductive coding of emergent themes. The content and sequence of codes were visually represented in MAXQDA's document portraits and illustrated with descriptive quotes. Results indicate that participants’ views about when to retire in order to maximise health did not highlight retirement age or timing (later, earlier, on time, anytime). Instead, these older Chileans emphasised that the optimal retirement age depends on other conditions, such as employment quality, retirement income and gender. These views were patterned: lower occupational-class participants emphasised income and job hazards, higher-class males emphasised job satisfaction and higher-class females emphasised gendered patterns. Women and lower-class participants were relatively more favourable to earlier retirements than men and higher-class participants. Overall, qualitative analyses of lay perspectives from understudied country contexts complement and extend population-based models focused on timing or retirement age, suggest specific characteristics of retirement transitions that may moderate health consequences, and highlight class and gender differences in views of retirement timing. More research is needed using mixed-methods approaches and leveraging both purposive and random samples.