Age-related changes shape social connectedness, isolation and loneliness among older adults. Ageing often accompanies decisions about ageing in place or moving (i.e. senior living facility). Scant research compares these two living arrangements and even sparser research focuses on older women. This study, thus, poses the following questions: How do older women (aged 75+ years) experience social connectedness and perceived isolation? How does this experience vary between older women living alone in private homes and those living in assisted living facilities? Data include semi-structured interviews with women aged 75+ years who live alone in a private home or in an assisted living facility (N = 16). Findings revealed differences in three aspects of social connectedness: interactions, relationships and belonging. Private home participants' interactions underscored intentionality, with minimal investment in forging new or deeper relationships and an emphasis on belonging to the world through awareness, contribution and cognitive ability. The experiences of participants living in assisted living were characterised by availability of interactions and casual relationships. They emphasised belonging to the facility community, while positioning themselves between the status of resident and staff. Surprisingly, most participants in both groups did not express feelings of perceived isolation. Both had adapted their social connectedness expectations to reflect their current situation.

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.

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.

The physical, mental and social benefits for older adults who volunteer are well-documented. Absent from this area of research is an understanding of volunteer motivations among ethnoculturally diverse older adults. This paper addresses this research gap by examining motivations to volunteer related to cultural generativity among Jewish older adults, a group that remains underexplored in research. Cultural generativity is defined as an impulse to pass down one's culture to the next generation, and thus to outlive the self. The Jewish community is notable for possessing high levels of social capital, indicated by close community ties and the large number of faith and culturally based organisations, and therefore makes them an important ethnocultural group to study. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 20 adult volunteers age 65 and over. The guiding research questions for this study are: What are the motivations to volunteer among older Jewish adults? and Do these motivations align with the concept of generativity applied to Jewish culture? Data analysis identified three themes related to cultural generativity: volunteering to preserve and pass down Jewish traditions and teachings; a Jewish ethic of giving back perceived as a duty; and experiences of anti-Semitism and discrimination motivating Jewish participants to volunteer. Findings suggest the ways in which cultural generativity may be expressed through volunteerism.

This paper explores how dignity is articulated and pursued by care workers in two currently prominent policy initiatives seeking to reform Danish care services for older people. Based on ethnographic case studies of ‘reablement’ practices and the use of ‘welfare technologies’, the paper shows how these attempts to create dignified care services transform interactions between care recipients and care workers. The analysis is inspired by a socio-material perspective on dignity as ‘crafted’ and ‘co-laboured’ in daily practices, in an interplay between multiple human and non-human actors. In the cases studied, dignity is articulated as closely related to older people's increasing autonomy and independence of formal care, and is pursued through enhancing care recipients’ self-care ability, and through technological automation of care tasks. However, these articulations and pursuits of dignity do not stand alone. When everyday care practices are closely examined, dignity is also pursued by care workers as increased co-operation and equality between care workers and care recipients, as de-objectification, and as promotion of enjoyment and quality of life. In these practices, care is ambivalently positioned as both a potential threat to dignity, and as a prerequisite to achieving it. The paper concludes by discussing the risks of policy agendas pursuing a narrow understanding of dignity as simply independence of care.

An exploratory study examines the knowledge of old people, their past and present teaching-learning experiences with children, and their readiness to teach children in the future. The respondents to structured-interviews are 76 old people from three cultural groups in Israel: Europeans, Yemenite-Tunisians and Christian-Arabs. Old people have many kinds of knowledge: occupational skills; formal, general and religious knowledge; personal experience and traditions of the ethnic group. Old people who perceive of themselves as knowledgeable and competent, who have frequent contacts with school-age children (particularly their own grandchildren), who reside in communities that support the social norm of communication between the generations, have had positive experiences teaching children and are prepared to teach children in the future. Old people who teach children, integrate then- past experiences, enhance their self-esteem and provide alternative behavioural models to children.

Although the proportion of older people using home care services has significantly increased in East Asian countries, the issue of the relationships between older people and home care workers in the East Asian context has received scant attention from scholars. This exploratory qualitative study aims to explore these relationships under the new Korean long-term care insurance system. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 family carers and private-sector home care service providers (home care workers and provider managers). The findings show that while the majority of family carers interviewed reported that their relationships were good, the majority of service providers' responses were more negative. Service providers stated that they experienced a number of difficulties that affected their relationships with older clients, including excessive demands or sexual harassment by the older people in their care, exposure to unsafe working environments, and poor treatment in terms of pay and conditions. The findings suggest that stable and good relationships between home care workers and their clients have not been secured in Korea's long-term care system.

This paper describes a preliminary investigation of differences in family caregiving in Australia. Forty-eight Italian-born family caregivers of dependent elderly persons were compared with 461 caregivers of Anglo-Celtic origin on measures reflecting psychological health and well-being, and on a range of socio-demographic variables. The latter had participated in the national Caring for Family Caregivers (CFC) group programme; the former are residents of the Melbourne metropolitan area. Statistical tests were conducted on measures which included the Affect Balance Scale (Bradburn and Noll 1969) and the Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger et al. 1983) and its translation (Pedrabassi and Santinello 1989). Findings indicated that Italians reported experiencing significantly less trait anxiety than Anglo-Celtic caregivers. Furthermore, significantly more Italians used community supports, were employed full-time, had lower levels of education, and reported better levels of general health than Anglo-Celtics. Implications for research and practice are drawn.

This article is principally concerned with the measurement and evaluation of the cost of the time which families devote to the care of handicapped elderly relatives living with them. One way of measuring the contribution is by means of time diaries which document the amount of time given to caring activities throughout the 24 hours of the day. How this was done in a small pilot study, carried out in Oxfordshire, England, is described. It is preceded by a brief general discussion of some of the factors which determine time use and by a description of the empirical findings from a few of the existing surveys. Some broad estimates of the indirect financial costs involved are offered, including an estimate using a different approach based on the loss of opportunity suffered by women who are prevented from undertaking paid work.

Centenarians worldwide are growing rapidly and thriving as they age. This growth reflects their desire to thrive beyond personal and societal obstacles, a hallmark sign of resilience. However, little research exists on centenarians’ perspectives about their lived experiences that reflect resilience. Therefore, the purpose of this secondary analysis was to capture the perspectives of Appalachian centenarians about (a) living through their childhood and early adulthood in an area known for poverty and isolation, and (b) exploring the resilient nature that emerged from their narratives. With a qualitative descriptive design, 21 community-dwelling Appalachian centenarians participated in face-to-face interviews. They resided in either their homes or assisted-living facilities. Transcripts were analysed with Neuendorf's method of content analysis. Within three themes, 11 sub-themes were identified: (a) working hard for the family, (b) loss of a loved one, (c) gender and race discrimination, (d) impact of isolation on health, (e) living a simple life, (f) using family/community support, (g) consuming and appreciating food from their farms, (h) spirituality, (i) generosity of spirit, (j) living a clean life, and (k) happy, good and loving life. Collectively, these themes and sub-themes reflected how the centenarians overcame and grew from challenges and adversities to become resilient. Consequently, these findings show that understanding resilience from centenarians’ perspectives can significantly contribute to the potential for longevity.

The article analyses the norms of grandmothering in relation to cultural representations of active ageing. Based on interviews that were carried out with 20 mothers and 20 grandmothers of children under the age of ten, the article focuses on the way in which the current emphasis on activity influences ideas about how the roles of grandparent should be performed and how women relate to their own ageing. The analysis shows that being active represented a significant framework of the mothers’ notions and expectations associated with care provided by grandmothers, of grandmothers’ talk about their own grandparental role and how both generations of women interpret their own memories of their own grandmothers. Both the mothers and the grandmothers noted how the family role of grandmothers had changed compared to past generations of grandmothers. This change was framed by the idea of having an active lifestyle and this idea formed an important framework for the mothers’ expectations about what their role as grandmothers might be like in the future. This paper critically analyses those representations of the grandmother role and point out the emergence of new forms of conflicts and challenges, and the sense of ambivalence about traditional roles that result from the close association made between being active and the representation of grandmothering.

For evidence about the extent and experience of old age in classical antiquity, one must rely excessively on literature and mythology, with their heavy bias towards the leisured classes and their lack of quantitative data. Nevertheless, there are bases for some plausible inferences: both life expectancy and for most people the standard of living were low, with a consequence of an early commencement of ‘adult’ employment and the absence of any notion (or possibility) of retirement; those hardy and lucky enough to survive of ten appear to have retained a vigorous creativity into very old age; emotional relations (e.g. between parents and children) were coloured by such factors as high infant mortality and the relative early death of parents and grandparents. The absence of really large cities, other than Rome and one or two others, and of rural isolation (the homestead farm, for example) reduced the dangers of the kind of loneliness associated with the modern bed-sitter, though problems of old age fell solely on the family (rather than the community). Medical literature showed a surprising lack of interest in mental illness associated with old age or even in medical problems other than the obvious ones of debility, and there is no way for us to penetrate the silence.

This qualitative study explores the experiences of 23 professional baby-boomers in Australia who are challenging the traditional employment and retirement pathway through non-standard employment (NSE). We focus on professional part-time, casual and self-employed work within the kaleidoscope of various working arrangements that form NSE. Using a phenomenographic approach, we identified variations in how these older baby-boomers experience engagement in NSE. Our findings revealed five interrelated hierarchical categories of description, which posit a generally positive view of NSE and highlight financial stability, flexibility, continued activity, social ties and maintaining self-identity as key conceptions for work engagement. Our study suggests that NSE is an important and under-researched part of the labour market for baby-boomer professionals, that it can offer greater opportunities for engagement and that the traditional hard-boundary view of retirement as a defined lifestage is softening. It extends our understanding of baby-boomer engagement with NSE in the labour market and offers findings that may inform future policy and practice.

In May 2010 a Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition Government was elected in the United Kingdom, which immediately started to plan a programme of wide-ranging cuts in public spending. However, in the face of severe economic problems the new government retained the outgoing government's emphasis on active ageing. This paper examines capacity-building partnerships between local authorities and third-sector organisations in LinkAge Plus (LAP) pilot areas in England, which were set up to find better ways to meet the needs of older people and empower them to become active citizens. The study on which this paper reports used theory on partnerships and collaboration to interrogate LAP pilot evaluation reports, along with current thinking on capacity building and work designed to improve services and outcomes for older people. The main findings are that capacity building in partnerships stimulated joined up working, which resulted in improved knowledge and skills in providing existing services. At the same time, new services emerged that meant older people were more involved in networking activities and social capital was created through their engagement in policy making, identifying needs, service design and finding solutions to problems. However, there were few instances of ideological activity that challenged established values and ways of working to go beyond traditional health and social care approaches in the delivery of services for older people. The potential impact of ongoing cuts in public spending are also considered.

Previous studies have shown that family networks evolve over time. Nonetheless, little research has linked family expansion or shrinking to the levels of available family-based social capital in older adults’ family networks. To address this research gap, this paper explores the following question: to what extent are changes in family composition and family-related life events associated with current levels of family-based social capital in later years? We use the two waves of the longitudinal CIGEV-LIVES Vivre-Leben-Vivere study, a large survey addressing the family and health conditions of older people in Switzerland. We combine data on life events occurring during old age and family configurations. We find that family networks are indeed highly dynamic, with distinct patterns of losses and gains observed among respondents. Adding and omitting significant family members has distinct significant effects on social capital, while family-related life events only have marginal effects.

Due to demographic developments, the number of immigrant families with older members is growing across Western Europe. Poised between the different approaches to care in their countries of origin and destination, such families are treading new ground as they negotiate support for older family members. Based on semi-structured interviews with 26 older and younger family members from 20 Turkish immigrant families in Denmark, this article investigates the broad variation in how these families approach caring for older people. At one end of the scale, some families (re)create a traditional Turkish approach to care in which three generations live together and the daughter-in-law is the main care provider. At the other end of the scale, some families follow the Danish approach in which families rely on public care provision. In between these two poles, many families devise a variety of care solutions for their older members that often rely on considerable support by family. Utilising Cati Coe's concept of care-scription, the analysis shows how families negotiate – and sometimes struggle over – who will shoulder which tasks. In the post-migration context, daughters-in-law are often able to retreat from their traditional role of care provider, which in turn increases expectations of daughters' care provisions. In Denmark, which is a relatively gender-equal society, Turkish daughters may seek to make their brothers take on a greater role in the provision of care for their parents, and in some families, the children also turn towards public care provisions to share the burden of parental care. Resistance from older parents may, however, short-circuit this strategy. Overall, the study points both to the difficulties faced by older immigrants with limited host-country language proficiency when utilising public European care provisions and to the complex and unsettled nature of care provisions in immigrant families in Europe today.

Domestic gardens represent a site for enacting embodied identity and social relationships in later life, and negotiating tensions between continuity and change. In the context of dementia, domestic gardens have significant implications for ‘living well’ at home, and for wider discussions around embodiment, relational selfhood and agency. Yet previous studies exploring dementia and gardens have predominantly focused on care home or community contexts. In light of this, the paper explores the role of domestic gardens in the everyday lives of people living with dementia and their households, using qualitative, creative methods. This includes filmed walking interviews and garden tours, diaries and sketch methods, involving repeat visits with six households in England. Findings are organised thematically in relation to different ‘ways of being’ in the garden: working in and doing the garden; being in and sensing; and playing, empowerment and agency. These different ‘ways of being’ are situated within relationships with household members, neighbours and non-human actors, including pets, wildlife and the materiality of the garden. Garden practices illustrate continuity, situated within embodied biographies and habitus. However, identities, practices and gardens are also subject to ongoing readjustment and reconstruction. The conclusion discusses implications for extending literature on gardens and later life, describing how social and material relationships in domestic gardens are renegotiated in the context of dementia, while highlighting opportunities for ‘play’, active sensing and agency. We also explore contributions to understandings of dementia, home and place, and implications for garden design and care practice.

The association between everyday activities, health and subjective wellbeing in older adults has mostly been examined using different activities as separate variables. Which activities are likely to come together in individuals’ daily time-use patterns, or in what context, has not yet been analysed. This study looks at a broad range of spontaneously reported activities, their location and social context to identify latent behavioural classes. The data used in the study came from a sample of 200 non-institutionalised adults aged 65 and above. Activity data were collected using the Experience Sampling Method. Generalised structural equation modelling was used to identify the classes. Three distinctive behavioural classes, representing different lifestyles, emerged: passive domiciliary, active functional and social recreational. They constituted 30, 53 and 17 per cent of the sample, respectively. Class membership was related to individuals’ age, education and selected dimensions of health measured using the Nottingham Health Profile: energy levels and emotional response. There was consistency between the objectively measured class and an individual's subjective assessment of their physical and emotional health. While both class membership and subjective wellbeing were associated with health, the relationship between class and wellbeing was weak and fully explained by socio-demographic and health-related variables.