This study investigates the dynamics of policy reforms pertaining to care for older adults in post-socialist Lithuania. In the Soviet era social services in Lithuania were in a rudimentary stage of development. By the early 1990s a combination of long-term demographic trends such as ageing, a decline in fertility rates and an increase in divorce rates, and the impact of radical neo-liberal reforms significantly increased the number of older individuals living alone and in poverty. In response, a number of measures were undertaken to reform older-age care, resulting in decentralisation, institutional layering and institutional recalibration of social services. It is argued that the historical legacy has proved to be especially significant in the institutional development of social services by reproducing a State-centred system, although with a growing trend towards the privatisation and marketisation of social care. The role of various organised interests and civic groups, policy makers and international organisations, as well as ideologies and broader sets of cultural values in shaping social services pertaining to the care of older adults are discussed.

Although the loneliness of both older adults and immigrants is frequently asserted, knowledge regarding the implications of immigration for loneliness in later life is limited. In particular, little attention has been directed to the impact of factors that might differentiate individuals within the immigrant population. Using data from the 2007 General Social Survey (GSS-21) conducted by Statistics Canada, this study examined the effects of immigrant status as well as immigrant generation, length of residence in Canada and race/ethnicity on loneliness among adults aged 60 and over (N=10,553). Regression analyses (ordinary least squares) estimating both the general and age-specific effects of immigrant experience on loneliness, indicated that immigrants report higher levels of loneliness than native-born Canadians, that race/ethnicity influenced loneliness particularly among immigrants and that generational status as well as length of residence also had an impact, but one that differed across age groups. Immigration-related variables appeared less consequential for loneliness in the oldest-old (aged 80+) than in younger elderly age groups. These findings attest to the significance of immigrant status for an understanding of loneliness in later life but suggest a need to acknowledge the diversity of immigrant experiences associated with lifecourse and other factors.

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.

The globalisation of international migration has increased the ethnic diversity of most ageing populations across the Western world. This has implications for gerontological research, policy and practice, and puts our understandings of ethnicity to the test. This paper presents the different perspectives that inform ethnicity scholarship (the essentialist/primordial perspective, the structuralist/circumstantialist perspective and social constructionism) and suggests that the way in which we regard ethnicity has implications for how gerontological research is designed, how policies for old age are formulated and how gerontological practice is shaped. Through a review of contemporary gerontological research on ethnicity published in some of gerontology's main journals, the paper discusses some of the trends observed and concludes that most research seems to be informed by essentialism and structuralism. This suggests that the gerontological imagination on ethnicity has yet to be informed by the latest developments in ethnicity scholarship. The paper therefore urges gerontologists to broaden their understanding of ethnicity and suggests that much could be gained if we were to let the social constructionist perspective on ethnicity and the notion of intersectionality be sources of inspiration for the gerontological imagination on ethnicity.

The precarious financial situation of many elderly women in developed countries is well established. Nevertheless, in-depth insight into the persistent vulnerability of this group remains largely absent. In this article, we demonstrate how a specific focus on the interaction between work history, family history and pension regulations can provide greater insight into the mechanisms that produce poverty among elderly women in Belgium. To that end, we make use of register data on some 9,000 women aged 65–71. Data on the poverty risk of these women is linked to career and family data, spanning over 45 years. We find that pension policy can indeed account for the higher poverty risk of some groups of elderly women (e.g. divorcees) as compared to others (e.g. widows). Similarly, pension policy can, to a large extent, directly or indirectly explain how previous lifecourse events, such as marital dissolution or childbirth, affect old-age poverty risk. However, our study also reveals some unexpected findings. Most notably, pension regulations fail to account for the beneficial situation of married women. Indeed, our analyses suggest that capital (income) may prove more decisive than pension rights in explaining the low poverty risk of married women when compared to other marital groups. Drawing from our findings, we conclude with some suggestions as to where pension policy should go from here.

Singapore has an age-based mandatory retirement policy for taxi drivers. In 2006, the upper age limit of mandatory retirement was raised from 70 to 73 years for healthy, older taxi drivers. Retirement from taxi driving in Singapore often results in simultaneous retirement from work and forced driving cessation due to limited private vehicle ownership. While both retirement from work and driving cessation have been found to have negative implications for health and wellbeing in Western countries, little is known about the effects of mandatory retirement and driving cessation for healthy professional drivers in an Asian context. This study aimed to explore the mandatory retirement experience of older Singaporean taxi drivers, aged 70–73 years. In-depth interviews were conducted within a descriptive phenomenological approach with 23 older Singaporean taxi drivers who were retired or retiring drivers. Findings showed the experience to be dominated by retirement from work issues rather than by driving cessation. Three themes described the experiences: ‘stories of taxi driving’, ‘feeling lost in retirement’ and ‘contradictions of growing old in Singapore’. Taxi driving was a valued role. Despite an expected retirement, most participants were not prepared for the retirement transition. They struggled with emotional adjustment, financial vulnerability, identity, reduction in life-space and meaningful activity participation. Participants felt under-valued despite having personal achievements and support from family and ‘successful ageing’ policies. Work remained a preferred activity despite limited re-employment opportunities. The unique context of expected but forced retirement, financial need in a non-welfare system, high cultural value on work, and limited options for productive or meaningful activities and roles, predisposed this sub-group of older Singaporean men to be vulnerable retirees in terms of identity and wellbeing issues. Support for a stressful late-life transition is indicated for continued health and wellbeing.

Falling in later life continues to be a critical issue in gerontology research, health professional practice and ageing health policy. However, much research in the area of fall risk and fall prevention neglects the meaning of the experiences of older people themselves. This humanistic interpretive phenomenological study explored the meaning of the experience of anticipating falling from the perspective of older people in order to foster a more person-focused approach to fall risk assessment and fall prevention. Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine participants over the age of 65 living independently in the community. Follow-up interviews with two key informants were completed to inform the emerging interpretations. For older participants residing in the community, the experience of anticipating falling meant confronting their embodied lived-identity in the context of ageing. Experiential learning shaped how participants understood the meaning of falling, which constituted tacit, pathic knowledge of vulnerability and anxiety with respect to falling. Findings emphasise the importance of critically reflecting on the social experience of anticipating falling to develop effective and relevant fall prevention interventions, programmes and policies. A lifeworld-led approach to fall risk assessment and fall prevention resonates with these findings, and may encourage health-care providers to adopt a sustained focus on embodied lived-identity and quality of life when engaging older people in fall prevention activities.

There is growing interest in factors which can contribute to the wellbeing of older adults. Participation in learning could have beneficial effects, but to date research on the benefits of learning has tended to focus on young people or those in mid-life and there is currently little evidence on the impact of learning on the wellbeing of older adults. In this paper we provide new, quantitative evidence on the relationship between participation in learning and the wellbeing of older adults. Our study used data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a continuing, longitudinal survey of older adults. To measure wellbeing we used the CASP-19 instrument, a subjective wellbeing measure which is available at all waves of the ELSA survey. Respondents were asked about four types of learning activity: obtaining qualifications; attendance at formal education/training courses; membership of education, music or arts groups or evening classes; membership of sports clubs, gym and exercise classes. To take account of unobservable factors which might influence wellbeing, we applied fixed effects panel regressions to four waves of ELSA data. Learning was associated with higher wellbeing after controlling for a range of other factors. We found evidence that more informal types of learning were associated with higher wellbeing. There was no evidence that formal education/training courses were associated with higher wellbeing.

Cantonese operatic singing, one of the regional opera forms in China, flourishes mainly in the southern province of Guangdong. By exploring the culture of Cantonese operatic singing, this study relates older people's music participation to a sense of collectivism, thereby contributing to the maintenance of interpersonal relationships and promoting successful ageing. The study also illustrates how the musical participation of older adults can be influenced by the lifecourse and ageing in terms of both vocal abilities and levels of participation. Data analysed through participation observation in two Cantonese operatic singing lessons identify the rituals and core values of Cantonese operatic singing lessons. The findings help to explain how this particular music genre interacts with ageing.

People with dementia living in residential care often face the dual disadvantage of increasing difficulty with communication and reduced opportunities for conversation. Social interaction is central to wellbeing of residents with dementia, so it is important that care staff have the skills to engage in conversation with them. We studied conversations in 20 care staff–resident dyads, to examine conversation structure and content, patterns of engagement within conversations, including the topics around which engagement occurred, and communication behaviours by care staff that appeared to facilitate (or impede) participation by residents. The transcripts were analysed using Discursis, a computational information visualisation tool that allows interactive visual inspection, in context, of the contributions by each speaker, the turn-taking dynamics, and the content recurring within and between speakers. We present case examples (a) where care staff did most of the talking, initiated topics and were responsible for most recurrence of content; (b) where talk was more evenly shared between partners, with some topics initiated and/or elaborated by participants with dementia; and (c) where participants with dementia talked most, with care staff supporting the conversation. We identified accommodative strategies used by care staff, such as reflecting back the other person's responses to sustain engagement. We also noted care staff behaviours that impeded communication, such as not listening attentively and not allowing sufficient time for responses. The results from this study highlight aspects of social communication within the aged care context and suggest ways in which rewarding interactions between staff and residents with dementia might be encouraged.

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.

The research reported in this article investigated the nature and the purpose of older people's social interactions in their local neighbourhood shops. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews with and observation of 11 shoppers, aged 67 years and older, and six shopkeepers. Classic grounded theory analysis method revealed a previously uncharted psycho-social process associated with these interactions entitled by the authors as Civic Socialising; it highlights that older people's interactions in their local neighbourhood shops embody authentication of themselves as individuals and as community members, and their co-construction and co-preservation of the milieu of their local neighbourhood shopping precinct with a view to sustaining their ongoing autonomy. The new conceptual theory Civic Socialising highlights that older people can be proactive, resilient and capable, dimensions integral to human fulfilment, and demonstrates that older people can play an active role in their communities where the environment is enabling. The new conceptual theory Civic Socialising has significance for the way we determine and view older people's social relationships. Crucially, in light of a burgeoning older population world-wide, it is clear that policy makers and social planners must ensure that older people can continue to interact in their communities if ageing in place is to be a satisfying and cost-effective experience. Without such consideration, ageing in place could well create dependency and despondency.

In this paper we use Alvesson and Sandberg's strategy of problematisation to analyse the assumptions embedded in the development and use of the concept of ‘care-giver burden’. We do this in order to develop an explanation as to why decades of research into the experience of providing home-based care to a family member with dementia has had little effect in relieving or reducing the ‘burden’ of that care. Though some part of this is undoubtedly political, our analysis suggests that key assumptions of the research limit both knowledge development and intervention effectiveness. Especially problematic are first, an overriding focus on the isolated care-giver–recipient dyad as the appropriate object of inquiry and target of intervention, and second, an absence of an analysis of the materiality of care and care-giving practices. The heterogeneity of care situations, including interrelations among people, technologies, objects, spaces and other organisational worlds, appear in much of the research primarily as methodological problems, variables to be subdued through a more rigorous application of method. The high volume of research and acknowledged low impact of interventions, however, suggests that rethinking the nature of care practices, and how we come to know about them, is necessary if we are to develop and implement strategies that will contribute to better outcomes for people.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in researching ageing ethnic minority populations in the West. However, older people from such minority communities have received comparatively little attention in wide-ranging discussions on appropriate research methodologies. By a process of critically reflecting on our experiences of undertaking fieldwork for our Economic and Social Research Council New Dynamics of Ageing study of ‘Families and Caring in South Asian Communities', this paper maps out the key methodological and ethical challenges we faced and, in the process, highlights the importance of developing socially appropriate research methodologies and ethical frameworks for research with such populations. With a reflexive approach, we specifically explore the significance of gender, age, time and space to the fieldwork processes and the ‘field’ relationships formed at various stages of the research process. In particular, we explore three key emergent issues which conflicted with our formal research protocols and presented particular challenges for us and our older Pakistani Muslim participants: (a) structuring of time in daily life; (b) gendered use of public and private spaces; and (c) orality of informal social contexts and relationships. Using illustrations from our fieldwork which reveal the particular significance of these issues to our fieldwork experiences and performativities of public/private identities, we highlight important tensions between formalised ethical and methodological dimensions of conducting funded research and the realities of being in ‘the field’. We conclude the paper by emphasising the need to explore further not only the ways in which researchers can adopt more socially and culturally sensitive data collection processes and methodologies at the micro level of their interactions with research participants, but also contextualising the particular challenges experienced by researchers and their participants in terms of the wider research frameworks and agendas as well as the broader social contexts within which they live and work.

Second couplehood in old age is a growing phenomenon alongside increases in life expectancy. Lately, a shift has occurred in that individual diversity of ageing is perceived to depend on the physical and social contexts in which older persons experience change. Thus, the purpose of the study on which this paper reports was to examine second couplehood in the context of old age and old age in the context of second couplehood using an existential-phenomenological theoretical orientation. Twenty couples were recruited using criterion-sampling: men aged 65+ and women aged 60+, with children and grandchildren from a lifelong marriage that had ended in widowhood or divorce, living in second couplehood – married or not – in separate houses or co-habitating. Forty individual semi-structured interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed according to phenomenological tradition. Five sub-themes emerged, demonstrating couplehood and old age intertwining: (a) enjoying life while still possible; (b) living with health-related issues; (c) relationships with adult children: autonomy versus dependency; (d) loneliness: living as a couple is better than living alone; (e) self-image: feeling young–feeling old. Findings support the existence of positive and negative aspects of old age. Our discussion suggests the need to replace perceptions of old age as either a negative burden or a positive asset towards a period of balancing between gains and losses. Furthermore, we acknowledge the role of second couplehood in older peoples’ wellbeing on the personal–micro level through love, the familial–mezzo level through care-giving and the social–macro level by reducing prejudice.

A key feature of population ageing in Europe and other more economically developed countries is the projected unprecedented rise in need for long-term care in the next two decades. There is, however, considerable uncertainty over the future supply of unpaid care for older people by their adult children. The future of family care is particularly important in countries planning to reform their long-term care systems, as is the case in England. This article makes new projections of the supply of intense unpaid care for parents aged 65 and over in England to 2032, and compares these projections with existing projections of demand for unpaid care by older people with disabilities from their children. The results show that the supply of unpaid care to older people with disabilities by their adult children in England is unlikely to keep pace with demand in future. By 2032, there is projected to be a shortfall of 160,000 care-givers in England. Demand for unpaid care will begin to exceed supply by 2017 and the unpaid ‘care gap’ will grow rapidly from then onwards. The article concludes by examining how far this unpaid ‘care gap’ is likely to be met by other sources of unpaid care or by developments in new technology and examines the implications of the findings for long-term care policy.

Community physical activity (PA) groups have come in to being worldwide to inspire older adults to engage in PA. However, there is limited evidence that older adults adhere to these groups, particularly those of a lower socio-economic status, with health conditions, from black and minority ethnic (BME) groups and men. This study aimed to explore experiences of attending PA groups from the viewpoint of community-living older adults, including those sub-groups of the population highlighted above. The purpose was to gain an understanding of what would influence long-term adherence to community PA groups. Eighteen participants aged 65 and above took part in three focus groups carried out in North West England. Thematic network analysis was used for theme generation and interpretation. Low-cost, universal locations are essential to enable older adults to engage regularly in PA, however, it is the social space that is created within these physical settings that is most influential in fostering their long-term adherence. Facilitating cross-cultural relationships and supporting older adults to have more control in shaping the PA environment will ensure that these settings are more conducive to the long-term adherence of diverse groups of older adults.

The purpose of this study is to examine how older people make sense of the changing urban environment – that is, how they experience, perceive and interpret their everyday interaction with its materiality, as well as their social ties, networks and relations. The results, based on seven focus groups and 37 individual in-depth interviews with older residents of the three most populous Czech cities, show how older people maintain the continuity of their activities, autonomy and independence within the limits of their personal resources in an active relationship with a changing urban environment and within the post-socialist context. The research supports the results of former studies that emphasise the ability of older adults to negotiate their position and actively cope with change while they age in place.

Over the last two decades, the concept of resilience has become the focus of a growing body of gerontological research. However, there is a dearth of qualitative research that explores how socio-economic and socio-cultural factors shape older people's resilience. This study addresses this gap and explores the concept of resilience through the lens of 25 Australians from a variety of backgrounds, investigating the resilience strategies they employed in the face of different challenging life events. A qualitative narrative methodology involving one focus group and semi-structured interviews was employed. A stratified convenience sample of 34 people aged 60 and over participated in semi-structured interviews between 2009 and 2011. The study describes the meaning participants assigned to the term resilience, and focuses on the range of resilience responses and strategies they employed, bringing to light some key commonalities and differences. The study's findings suggest that access to economic and cultural resources and the nature of the adversity older people face can shape and limit their resilience strategies. The article outlines how the concept of resilience could be incorporated into aged care practice and argues that resilience-focused interventions that potentially broaden the resilience repertoire of older people should be explored within an aged care context.

Elderly people with functional limitations are predominantly cared for by family members. Women – spouses and daughters – provide most of this care work. In principle, gender inequality in intergenerational care may have three causes: first, daughters and sons have different resources to provide care; second, daughters and sons respond differently to the same resources; third, welfare state programmes and cultural norms affect daughters and sons differently. In this paper, we address the empirical question whether these three assumed causes are in fact responsible for gender differences in intergenerational care. The empirical analyses, based on the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), reveal that parents in need are in fact more likely to receive care from daughters than from sons. Daughters are more responsive to the needs of their parents than sons and respond differently to the same resources. Gender inequality is highest in countries with a high level of intergenerational care, high public spending on old-age cash-benefits, a low provision of professional care services, high family obligation norms and a high level of gendered division of labour. Welfare state programmes reduce or increase gender inequality in intergenerational care by reducing or increasing the engagement of daughters in intergenerational care. In general, care-giving by sons is hardly influenced by social care policies.