The experience of retirement and old age of two cohorts of the residents of Paris, born successively around 1907 and 1921, have been studied through prospective longitudinal studies, each of which comprised several waves of interviews. The two cohorts were first interviewed as they approached retirement and old age, in respectively 1972 and 1984. Moulded by the strong contemporaneous social change, the principal life experiences of the two cohorts have been quite different – from the social and geographic settings of their birth, their childhood and education, through their occupations and career advancement, parenting and family lives, housing conditions and residential mobility, earned incomes and pensions, longevity, and utilisation of medical care. Above all, their long lives have been strongly conditioned by rapid and radical socio-economic changes, particularly in the occupational structure, the rising standard of living, and improvements in urban housing standards, social protection, personal services and average life span. In contrast to their rising material standards, the cohorts have faced the gradual spread of less sympathetic attitudes towards older people, particularly those who lose their autonomy. As the number of people in advanced old age has relentlessly increased, they have in several respects become more distant from the rest of society. Maintaining the continued ‘inclusion’ and full citizenship of frail older people is not only a growing moral and practical problem, but also a major political problem in a democracy.

Arab immigrants are a significant cultural presence in the United States of America and in this study's locale, the Detroit Metropolitan Area, yet their situations and experiences have rarely been examined. Six focus group interviews were conducted with both English-speaking and Arabic-speaking immigrants aged 60 years and older, to explore their descriptions of their ageing experiences with particular reference to expected and received social support. Tensions between cultural ideals and pragmatic realities were found about three topics: nursing home placements, expectations of children for care-giving, and state-sponsored support. Nursing homes were both feared and, in a form that met their cultural needs, seen as places that should be built. On children's support, there was a clear preference for independence and a simultaneous appreciation of children's help while wishing not to burden them. The informants saw state-sponsored support as providing material resources that could support independence, and as a source of discrimination because of their national origins. The Arab-American elders' narratives revealed diverse attitudes and experiences. By documenting the ways in which they made sense of their situations, initial assertions of cultural ideals were seen to be modified by more realistic expressions of support expectations, and an understanding was reached of the support strategies that they utilised to alleviate the demands and stresses on both the older immigrants and their families.

This paper discusses several changes in mother-daughter relationships in Turkey and their association with changing social conditions. It is based on in-depth interviews with 30 older mothers and their adult daughters. As a country experiencing rapid urbanisation, westernisation, military coups and economic crises, Turkey provides an increasingly changing setting for the investigation of inter-cohort changes in inter-generational relationships. Most of the mothers in the study were born during the 1930s, soon after the foundation of the Turkish Republic. They grew up during an era of material scarcity, restrictive social norms and few opportunities for advancement, and lived in a relatively homogeneous and stable social context. Most of the daughters were born during the 1950s; they grew up at a time of rapid social change and political turmoil but relative material abundance, and were exposed to consumerism and individualistic values that emphasised personal achievement and independence. The ideals and opportunities of the mothers’ youth conflicted with those presented to their children, and the goals of and approaches to parenting became unstable and a source of anxiety. The daughters were caught between their parents’ and their children's demands, which produced conflicts between their ideals and reality, and many experienced internal and inter-personal conflicts. Both mothers and daughters attributed differences in their personalities and parenting styles to the changing times.

Government policy in Sweden, as in other developed countries, pays increasing attention as to how best to support the family carers of older people. New and innovative means of support, such as information and communication technology, are emerging. This paper explores the perceived benefits of, and barriers to, information technology as a means of supporting family carers of older people. Following a brief overview of the care-giving literature, with particular reference to the Swedish context, interview and questionnaire data collected from 34 families who took part in the Swedish ACTION project are used to explore the role of user-friendly information and communication technology to inform and enable family carers of older people to exercise choice, to care more effectively and to work in partnership with professionals. Interview data from two groups of professionals that utilised ACTION are also examined to throw light on its potential benefits for both carers and professionals. Consideration is given to the barriers to using information technology, and to identifying those carers most likely to benefit. Areas for further development are the need for practitioners' education and a wider range of programmes to address carers' diverse needs. Clearly, lessons learned from the Swedish project have wider relevance, given that new forms of support are being developed in most technically advanced countries.

This paper describes the ways in which older people contribute to their communities and families as informal volunteers. It challenges current ways of thinking that assign an economic value to the productive activities undertaken by older people. Using qualitative data from a study of older people resident in Queensland, Australia, the paper explores the ways that older people contribute to their families and to the community and the outcomes associated with these activities. Two specific themes emerged from the data: first, the ways in which older people contribute to strong inter-generational relations, and second, how they provide essential mutual support that permits many older people to remain living in the community. These contributions, while often small in themselves, are in aggregate critical both to family functioning and to the maintenance of sustainable and healthy communities. Many are reciprocal interactions that add value to the lives of individuals and offer positive social roles in later life, and they may be particularly important for those from minority cultural backgrounds or at risk of social isolation. The findings suggest that older people are integral to community and civil society and, therefore, that social policy should respond to the ageing of Australia's population and recognise the positive contributions of older people, rather than emphasising the costs of demographic change.

This paper examines the extent of mental ill-health and probable depression among older people in long-term care. It presents selected findings from a study in Greater Belfast, Northern Ireland, that compared the quality of life, autonomy and mental health of older people living in nursing and residential homes with those of older people living in private households who were receiving domiciliary care. Structured interviews were conducted with 214 residents in institutions and 44 older people receiving domiciliary care. The study found that those in private households were more severely physically-impaired and had a higher level of mental ill-health than the residents of institutional homes. It is suggested, however, that the mental ill-health effects were associated less with physical impairments than with the restrictions placed on the older person's decisional autonomy, and that long-term care environments that constrain the older person's autonomy contribute to the development of depression. Although the UK National Service Framework for Older People specified that those with depression should be given treatment and support, priority should also be given to preventing the depression associated with living in long-term care settings.

This paper reports a study of the relationships between shared and separate living arrangements and the life satisfaction of two generations of migrants from the former Soviet Union to Israel, adult children (the younger generation) and their elderly parents. An attempt was made to identify the social, familial and personal factors that affect life satisfaction, and special attention was devoted to inter-generational family solidarity and to informal and formal social support. Data were collected from a stratified random sample of 425 respondents – 248 in the older generation and 177 in the younger. The results show that for both generations, contrary to expectations, life satisfaction was higher when the two generations lived in separate rather than shared households. Affectual solidarity was positively associated with life satisfaction for both generations, but functional solidarity for the older generation only. Among the older generation, the subjective evaluation of health contributed most to the explained variance; while among the younger, standard of living and employment contributed most. For both generations, family solidarity and social support had little impact. The findings are discussed in relation to the structural and economic factors that influence co-residence and which differentially affect the two generations.

In recent years, there has been a growth in academic interest in international retirement migration in Europe, particularly north-south retirement migration to destinations like Spain. In this paper we focus on those members of the British community who have lived in Spain for a considerable time and for whom familial, social and institutional ties with Britain are weak or disrupted. Age Concern España was established by members of the British community to provide information and services on healthcare, benefits and local services in Spain. Four indicative case studies of those requesting assistance and classified as being of ‘serious need’ are presented. They illustrate the ways in which happy and fulfilling lives in Spain were abruptly changed as the person's resources (bodily, economic, social and skills) for independent living diminished, and in which institutions and friendship networks played a key role in supporting life. The paper is the product of collaboration between researchers and practitioners in Spain and the UK, and brings together previous research with new qualitative case studies. Whilst policy-makers, practitioners and gerontologists have an increasing awareness of the needs of older migrants and the challenges they pose for public policy, particularly for health and social care systems in Spain, there have been little sustained analysis and cross-country debate.

Since the publication of her first book in 1988, Margaret Gullette has been a vigorous exponent of the view that the imaginative novels we read about ageing are an important cultural resource for making sense of the biological processes of growing older. Through the emphasis they choose to give to positive or to negative aspects of ageing and old age, authors can encourage and support the ageist tendencies in western culture, or alternatively can celebrate creativity and renewal in later life and, in so doing, make a potentially age-liberating contribution to the diminishment of prejudice against older people.