Retirement communities are a relatively new long-term accommodation and care option in the United Kingdom. Policy makers and providers endorse the proposition that they are suited for the accommodation of both ‘fit’ and ‘frail’ older people, although comparatively little is known about what it is actually like to live in such communities, about whether they cater adequately for older people with a wide spectrum of needs and abilities, or if they provide acceptable solutions to older people's housing or care needs. This paper addresses these questions by reporting the findings of an independently funded three-year study of a new retirement village, Berryhill, in the north Midlands of England. The paper examines the background to this and similar developments, details how the study was carried out, and then examines what it was like to live at Berryhill. It focuses on the housing and care aspects, and explores the residents' motivations for moving to the village; their views about the accommodation; and their use of and satisfaction with the social and leisure amenities. The health and care needs of residents and the formal and informal supports are also featured. The conclusion discusses whether the village can truly be a ‘home for life’ in the face of increasing frailty, and whether or not these new models of accommodation and care can indeed cater for both ‘fit’ and ‘frail’ older people.

This paper is a study of the discursive management of notions of change and continuity in interview talk. It presents selected short empirical examples from interviews with 22 Finnish baby-boomers, and discusses the methodological and theoretical issues that arise. Following a review of the major approaches to the study of age identity, the analytic intersection between qualitative gerontology and discursive psychology is explored. The analysis identifies how the frequent use of a ‘provisional continuity device’ enables speakers simultaneously both to acknowledge and to distance themselves from factual notions of physical or psychological lifespan change. The key methodological argument is that the discursive analysis of age-in-interaction cannot necessarily be achieved through the myopic micro-study of discursive strategies, but rather two suggestions are made. First, it is argued that analytically-anchored and rigorous discursive gerontology that both systematically draws on and contributes to the broad field of discursive research provides a means by which to test empirically post-modern conceptualisations of age identity. Second, it is suggested that analyses of age-talk in everyday and institutional settings provide an analytical and theoretical middle-ground between the macro versus micro or ‘microfication’ debate in gerontology.

Examination of the well-being and living conditions of older widows and widowers reveals ways in which adaptation to loss of the partner in later life is influenced by gender. This article compares the results of two Dutch studies, one on men and one on women between the ages of 60 and 75, living independently and widowed three to five years earlier. The same combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used in these studies. The results indicate remarkable similarities in the well-being of the widows and widowers. Gender influences the availability of resources such as income, education and freedom from health restrictions, with widowers demonstrating clear advantages compared to widows. In the area of relational resources, widows who are well adapted have more varied sources of support, including close female friends and supportive neighbours in addition to children. Widowers benefit more from the presence of new partners or partner-like relationships; the tendency of many widowers to rely strongly on children is a disadvantage. Few significant differences were found in the relational needs acknowledged by widows and widowers; however, acknowledging the need for intimacy is differentially related to life satisfaction for widowed men and women. An unexpected finding is the effect of gender on life satisfaction, which remains when other variables have been entered into the equation in regression analysis. Several possible interpretations for this gender factor are provided; these involve the possibility of greater diversity in the ways in which women adapt to widowhood, women's special virtuosity in relationships, and a kind of flexibility that is developed in the course of women's lives which helps them adapt to major change later life, despite structural disadvantages in comparison to men.

The role of identity in older adults’ decision-making about assistive technology adoption has been suggested but not fully explored. This scoping review was conducted to understand better how older adults’ self-image and their desire to maintain this influence their decision-making processes regarding assistive technology adoption. Using the five-stage scoping review framework by Arksey and O'Malley, a total of 416 search combinations were run across nine databases, resulting in a final yield of 49 articles. From these 49 articles, five themes emerged: (a) resisting the negative reality of an ageing and/or disabled identity; (b) independence and control are key; (c) the aesthetic dimension of usability; (d) assistive technology as a last resort; and (e) privacy versus pragmatics. The findings highlight the importance of older adults’ desire to portray an identity consistent with independence, self-reliance and competence, and how this desire directly impacts their assistive technology decision-making adoption patterns. These findings aim to support the adoption of assistive technologies by older adults to facilitate engagement in meaningful activities, enable social participation within the community, and promote health and wellbeing in later life.

Previous research applying quantifiable measurements has established significant positive associations between social capital and mental health in older adults. This study aimed to obtain a deeper understanding of the causal mechanisms of social capital affecting mental wellbeing among older people. The study is based on two independent qualitative data materials collected through two focus group interviews and an open-ended question included in a Finnish population-based postal survey. The findings indicate that informal social contacts such as family members and life-long relationships between friends impact the experienced mental wellbeing among older adults due to shared life events, social support, mutual appreciation and trust, as well as a sense of belonging through common social activities. Hence, this study challenges Putnam's idea of social capital as a collective concept focusing on formal contacts and the benefits on a collective level. In addition, the findings highlight the obstacles specific to older adults in maintaining social networks and participation, which should be considered in order to promote mental health in later life.

This article reports an analysis of European Community Household Panel (ECHP) data to test the hypothesis suggested by Kemeny (1981) and Castles (1998) of a trade-off between the extent of home-ownership and the generosity of old-age pensions. To this end, we evaluate the impact of a range of both pensions arrangements and housing policies on the risk of poverty in old age. The most important analytical innovation is the inclusion of social housing provision as an important policy alternative to the encouragement of home-ownership. Although we found substantial empirical support for the trade-off hypothesis, the findings raise several issues for discussion and further research. Firstly, we found that neither generous pensions nor high ownership rates had the strongest poverty-reducing potential, for this was most strongly associated with the provision of social housing for older people. Furthermore, the analysis identified a group of older people who are faced with a double disadvantage, in the sense that in high home-ownership countries, those who did not possess their own homes also tended to receive low pension benefits. Although this effect arises at least partly as a result of selection – the larger the ownership sector, the more selective the group of people who do not own their homes – the high poverty risk among ‘non-owners’ was apparently not countered by the pension system.

The consequences of adult children's migration from rural areas for older parents who remain behind are keenly debated. While the mass media and international advocacy organisations favour an ‘alarmist’ view of desertion, the academic literature makes more sanguine assessments using the ‘household strategy’ and ‘modified extended family’ perspectives. We examine the relationship between the migration of adult children and various dimensions of older parents' wellbeing in Thailand using evidence from a survey that focused on the issues. The results provide little support for the alarmist view, but instead suggest that parents and adult children adapt to the social and economic changes associated with development in ways not necessarily detrimental to intergenerational relations. The migration of children, especially to urban areas, often benefits parents' material support while the recent spread of cell phones has radically increased their ability to maintain social contact. Nevertheless, changing living arrangements through increased migration and the smaller family sizes of the youngest age groups of older people pose serious challenges for aspects of filial support, especially at advanced ages when chronic illness and frailty require long-term personal care. Dealing with this emerging situation in a context of social, economic and technological change is among the most critical issues facing those concerned with the implications of rapid population ageing in Thailand and elsewhere.

Opportunities for older people to take part in decision making about public policies and services are expanding in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. This paper considers the potential of older people's participation in policy processes for both transforming the policy process and for achieving socially just outcomes. It argues that the way in which such participation takes place, in particular the nature of the deliberative processes, affects both who will feel able to take part and the capacity to develop new policy discourses which can challenge official perspectives and assumptions. It draws from critical perspectives on deliberative democracy to provide a theoretical framework. This work emphasises the importance of story telling and forms of exchange designed to offer recognition to others, as well as the rational argument more usually associated with deliberation on matters of public policy. The argument is illustrated with examples of participation initiatives that have involved ‘active’ older people and those who are users of social care services. Different styles and processes of exchange are distinguished in the three case studies. In one, active facilitation enables individual stories of ageing and of service use to be woven into collective narratives that offer an alternative vision of care services. In another, a strong emphasis on ‘greeting’ enables conflicting views to be expressed without participants falling out. In the third, styles of exchange familiar in formal debate limit the development of an alternative discourse. The conclusion suggests that attention needs to be given to the process of participation as well as to outcomes.

The social care system of China has come under close scrutiny from policy makers due to the rapid ageing of China's population. Unfortunately, there is very little Chinese research evidence that might be used to plan future service developments. This article is a contribution to filling that gap and it provides essential new information on the expressed demand among older people in China for various community care services. The data are from the 2008 wave of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey. According to the characteristics of the dependent variables, we used Binary Logistic Regression Analysis to analyse the need for community care among older people in China. The results show considerable need for such care, but China is still a developing country and there are insufficient resources to fund a Western-style social care system (even if that was desirable). Thus, it is argued that the development of social care in China should emphasise community-based care, in partnership with families, with institutional care as a last resort. In addition, it is argued that China (and other countries) should introduce measures to prevent the demand for social care.

This paper examines older women's experiences and perceptions of clothing prescriptions for adults in later life. Using data from in-depth interviews with 36 women aged 71 to 93 years, we investigate the stringent, taken-for-granted social norms that older women identified with respect to appropriate fashion for the ageing female body. Specifically, the participants argued that older women should refrain from wearing bright colours and revealing or overly suggestive styles. Expressing a preference for classic or traditional styles, the women also reported that they used clothing strategically to mask or compensate for bodily transgressions that had occurred over time as a result of the physical realities of ageing, including weight gain, altered body shapes, wrinkles and sagging or ‘flabby’ arms and necks, referred to respectively as ‘bat wings’ and ‘turkey wattles’. In addition, the women contended that they consciously chose their clothing styles to compensate for age-related health issues and/or to present a competent, healthy self to others. Finally, the women talked about the ways in which their clothing choices were influenced by their changing lifestyles and constrained by a lack of desirable and affordable clothing options for the older female body. The findings are discussed in the light of Erving Goffman's concept of stigma and contemporary theorising about ageing, ageism, beauty work and the body.

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.

Many gerontological studies have dealt with the leisure activities of older people and they have generated many important theories. Although outdoor activities and mobility promote good health in old age, both decrease with increasing age as people lose physical and mental functions. This paper examines the outdoor and indoor leisure activities of 3,950 older adults and their variations by personal and environmental characteristics in Germany, Finland, Hungary, The Netherlands and Italy. The main dimensions of activity were established by factor analysis, and in all countries four factors were found: home activities, hobbies, social activities, and sports activities. Both similar and distinctive pursuits characterised each dimension among the five countries. ‘Home activities’ mainly comprised indoor activities, but the other three dimensions involved more physical mobility. The scores of various socio-environmental characteristics on the factors enabled the attributes of the participants to be profiled. Sports activities and hobbies were performed more often by younger men, by those with good physical functioning and by those who drove cars. Social activities were performed more by women and those who used public transport. Home activities were more frequently performed by those with low physical function and women.

The context of this paper is the changing nature of later life in the United Kingdom. It examines some of the broader issues of early retirement. While there has been considerable debate about the restructuring of employment during the latter part of the 20th century which led to a shake-out of older workers from the labour force, less attention has been given to those who take voluntary early retirement. Given the importance of early retirement to the economy and to social policy, it is important to find out how individuals make retirement decisions. The paper examines the results of a semi-structured interview study of the decisions made by a purposively drawn sample of British civil servants who are participants in the Whitehall II study. The sample included participants who chose early retirement and those who did not. From the interview data, ideal types of possible routes into retirement have been constructed. Illustrating these ideal types, individual life histories are drawn upon to show how responses to the issues surrounding retirement feature in people's lives. It is argued that decisions about early retirement are not made in a vacuum, neither are they free from pressures or inducements. Some are to do with organisational restructuring, some are about financial offers, and some are influenced by the opportunities for leisure and self-fulfilment that early retirement offers. The paper concludes by arguing that early retirement needs to be studied as a process involving the interplay between structure and agency.

Empirical research on women's feelings about their body size has traditionally focused on adolescents and young adults and has been carried out within the framework of experimental social psychology. This article examines the subjective meanings of body size for a sample of 12 women aged between 63 and 75 years via an analysis of in-depth interview data. The findings suggest that body size has a complexity of contradictory meanings for older women, which are shaped in relation to social discourses surrounding beauty ideals, gender identity and constructions of age and ageing. Many of the older women were dissatisfied with their body size, highlighting the cross-generational influence of a ‘thin ideal’ of size. At the same time, however, the women adopted a laissez-faire attitude towards body size and eating, rejecting the pressures surrounding size and food. This attitude was related to the women's constructions of this stage of their lives as a time of freedom, their awareness of personal mortality, and their beliefs about the inevitability of weight-gain as they grew older. The findings are discussed in relation to feminist approaches to body size and gerontological research on age/gender stereotypes.

This paper examines the meaning of social dancing for older people. It is based on a one-year qualitative research project, which is seeking to explore the experiences of social dance for people aged 60 years or more who attend various dance events in Essex and south-east London. The findings suggest that the social dance experience is not only or simply a beneficial physical experience for older people, it also bestows other significant benefits for those who enter the third age and beyond. It can provide continuity within change. It offers an opportunity to be sociable and have fun in ways that both reflect, and avowedly move beyond, the dancers' teenage years. It promotes a welcome sense of a community spirit. It is a way of becoming visible and aesthetically pleasing, and it bestows a sense of worth and achievement in skills learnt through dancing. Last but not least, dancers can experience the joy of a fit and able body in both real and mythic senses.

Recent surveys in Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam reveal that substantial proportions of persons aged 60 and older co-reside with grandchildren and commonly provide grandparental care. Usually the grandchildren's parents are also present. Situations in which the grandchildren's parents are absent are considerably less frequent. Parents are commonly the main source of the grandchildren's financial support even if absent. Most grandparents that provide care do not consider it a serious burden even when the grandchild's parents are absent. Moreover, grandparental care is not always one-directional as grandchildren can also be of help to grandparents. These features of grandchild care reflect a regional cultural context that views acceptance of reciprocal intergenerational obligations as normal and in which co-residence of older persons and adult children is still common. Differences in economic development and past fertility trends account for much of the observed differences in grandparental care among the three countries by affecting grandchildren availability and migration of adult children. In addition, economic development and demographic trends will continue to shape grandparental care in the coming decades. Despite the lack of attention to development and demographic context in previous studies, these aspects of the changing societal context deserve a prominent place within conceptual frameworks guiding comparative research on grandparenting.

Finding ways of improving the health and wellbeing of older men is an important challenge for public health. This review aimed to assess evidence for the effects of Men's Sheds and other gendered social activities on the health and wellbeing of older men, and to consider their effective components and theoretical frameworks. A scoping review using standardised search criteria and terms identified 31 relevant papers of sufficient quality for inclusion. Analysis was informed by guidance on interpretative and narrative synthesis and a quality assessment tool designed for reviewing disparate data from different disciplines and research paradigms applied. The review found some limited evidence that Men's Sheds and other gendered social activities may have impact on the mental health and wellbeing of older men, but little evidence of the impact on physical health. Qualitative data provided valuable insights into how and why complex psycho-social activities can affect participants, but there was a lack of longitudinal evidence drawing on validated health and wellbeing measures. Key components of successful interventions included accessibility, range of activities, local support and skilled co-ordination. A variety of theoretical frameworks were employed. As yet, there is no conclusive evidence that Men's Sheds and other gendered interventions confer health and wellbeing benefits on older men. Studies in this field to date are few and of variable quality. Larger and more robust mixed-methods studies, including randomised designs, are needed.

Retirement is an inherently complex process due to the multitude of variables that influence it. The present article proposes that by combining our understanding of retirement phases (a conceptual framework) with a theory that specifies a general mechanism for retirement adaptation (a theoretical framework), we can improve how we research retirement. Accordingly, this study proposes and tests a model exploring the antecedents and consequences of the retirement process across three stages: Pre-retirement, Transition and Adaptation, using data collected from 550 Australian retirees. Multiple outcomes are explored, including adjustment, wellbeing and life satisfaction, as well as variables including planning, perception of wealth, resources and mastery. The model showed a significant influence of resources on both phases and outcomes, with mastery showing the strongest relationships of all the resources. Results suggest that outcomes in retirement may be improved by promoting retirement planning, improving exit conditions and building key resources, in particular, mastery. Overall, the model demonstrates the value of combining theory and conceptual frameworks to inform the specification of statistical models to research retirement. Research implications and alternative models are discussed.

Historically, ageing processes have often been perceived as growing constraints to a good life, but proposals for a reorganization of positive meanings also date back at least to Roman times. In order to study age-related reorganization of meaning, self-descriptive statements of 300 young and 300 elderly adults were collected with a sentence completion test. A coding scheme was used to identify age-specific meaning patterns.

In contrast to young adults, elderly people completed problem- and future-oriented sentence stems significantly more often by referring to negative aspects of their own ageing process. Nevertheless, their answers to self-referent sentence stems showed that they used significantly more positive and fewer negative or ambivalent statements about self and life. The analysis of the overall patterns of cognitions in both age groups suggested that, within the existential constraints of old age, positive meaning is created by elderly people through various cognitive-affective strategies. For instance, instead of maintaining high expectations for life realization and self-development, the elderly change their standards, becoming more self-accepting and value more highly what is already given and still available. Conclusions are drawn about life-span development and modifiability of meaning.

This paper aims to study the applicability of the shared care approach in the Chinese community in Britain. The discussion is based on findings of two studies on family care of older people in London conducted respectively in 1991 and 1998. Both studies examined the needs of Chinese older people and whether and how their needs were met by informal care. The findings show that there is a strong belief among Chinese families that older people should live with their sons. While the Chinese families were highly motivated to take care of their older family members, and many of them felt obliged to live with their parents and wanted to give assistance to them, not all were, in practice, able to do so as much as they would have wished. Shortfall between what older people needed and the assistance they received was obvious, especially in relation to personal care. It is argued that traditional Chinese values still carry some influence in obliging the Chinese to look after their elderly family members. However, they are not sufficiently influential to guarantee sufficient care. A unique model of shared care is thus clearly and precisely called for by the findings of this study.