This article provides an overview of the New Zealand Health, Work and Retirement Study (HWR), the focus of which is on determinants of cultural-contextual factors on physical and mental health among 6,662 New Zealand citizens, a nationally representative sample of adults between 55 and 70 years of age. The HWR was initiated in 2006 with two-year re-assessment intervals. The health and wellbeing of older Māori was a study priority as previous research has shown large health disparities between Māori and non-Māori in New Zealand. Persons of Māori origin were over-sampled to ensure adequate information for subsequent analyses. First-wave results indicated that socioeconomic status, social support and retirement status were associated with optimal ageing among older adults in New Zealand. Māori scored lower on markers of physical and mental health, which was partially explained by restrictive factors including reduced economic living standards and a propensity towards less physical activity. After controlling for multiple socio-contextual and biological variables, ethnicity continued to predict health, suggesting that there are other markers of health and wellbeing in ageing among Māori. Structural variables which restrict access to health care and predispose Māori to engage in maladaptive lifestyle behaviours combined with the distal effects of colonisation may contribute to the health disparities found between Māori and the majority population in New Zealand.

Although participating in community social programming is associated with positive physical and mental health outcomes for older adults, older men participate less often than women. Men's Sheds is a community programme used primarily by older men that originated in Australia and is well established there. The goal of the current study was to explore men's perceptions of the need for Men's Sheds and issues concerning access to them in Canada, a country with a small but growing Men's Sheds movement. We conducted focus groups with 64 men aged 55 years and older, including Men's Sheds members and men from the community who were unfamiliar with this programme, and analysed the data using the framework analytic approach. The data revealed two primary themes concerning: (a) the need for male-focused community programmes, including the sub-themes reducing isolation, forming friendships and engaging in continued learning; and (b) access to programmes, including the sub-themes points of contact, sustaining attendance and barriers. Findings suggest that in order to reduce the likelihood of isolation and increase opportunities for social engagement, exposure to the concept of male-focused programming should begin before retirement age. In addition, such programmes should be mindful of how they are branded and marketed in order to create spaces that are welcoming to new and diverse members.

Research on the ways in which having been an international migrant in later life shapes the welfare needs, preferences and expectations of non-native older people in rich countries is in its infancy, for both the ageing and migration fields have been slow to examine the experiences of older migrants. This paper focuses upon the welfare citizenship experiences of older women who migrated in later life to England, either as refugees or as post-retirement migrants. It reports findings from interviews and focus groups conducted with black Caribbean, Irish, Chinese and Somali older women migrants in Sheffield, Yorkshire, UK, as part of the Older Women's Lives and Voices Study. The paper explores their experiences of accessing welfare citizenship and the barriers they encountered in accessing mainstream services. In particular, it examines the unequal platform from which older migrants who do not speak English access welfare citizenship rights and services, and assesses the important constraints of discrimination and language differences. Despite the obstacles, the older women participants were actively pursuing their inclusion in welfare rights and services. The paper argues for more recognition of the important enabling role that informal systems of support provided by participation in community or cultural organisations plays in the welfare citizenship and agency of minority ethnic older women.

Primary carers provide much of the day-to-day care for community-dwelling people living with dementia (PWD). Maintaining that contribution will require a more in-depth understanding of the primary carer role and the support needs that flow from that role. This study explored patterns of formal and informal support utilisation by people caring for a PWD in a rural-regional context. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 rural primary carers of a PWD and thematically analysed. Participant primary carers' almost total commitment to, and absorption in their role and their assumption of ultimate responsibility for the PWD's wellbeing meant that external social context, such as rurality, became less relevant. Carer networks effectively contracted to those key individuals who were central to supporting them in their caring task. External sources of support were tightly managed with strong boundaries around the provision of direct care to the PWD largely excluding all but professional providers. Primary carers are generally categorised along with other family and friends as informal care. However, in assuming primary responsible for the care and wellbeing for the PWD they effectively become the key care provider, suggesting that it would be productive in both research and practice to treat primary carers as key members of a care partnership alongside professional carers, rather than as adjuncts to formal care and/or another client.

The aim of this study was to investigate ‘successful ageing’ among low income elderly people in the Republic of Korea (South Korea). A sample of men and women aged 65 or more years who received welfare benefits and social welfare services from senior welfare centres and who had good cognition were identified and recruited by the staff of eight such centres in Seoul, the capital city of the country. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with a structured questionnaire using measures and instruments that were selected following a literature review and previous studies of low-income older people. The survey instrument was pre-tested with seven subjects to ensure the comprehensibility of the items, and 220 main interviews were conducted in the respondents' homes and at senior welfare centres during October and November 2006. Factor analysis identified three factors in successful ageing: ‘a positive attitude towards life’, ‘success of adult children’, and ‘relationships with others’. Men reported higher scores on successful ageing than women. It was concluded that the concept of ‘successful ageing’ does apply to low-income elderly people in Korean, although its components have little to do with material or social success as conceived by previous studies of the general elderly population in either western or Asian countries.

In ageing societies, policy makers aim for more contact between informal and formal care-givers as it may enhance the quality of care. So far, the linkage between formal and informal care-givers is generally studied from a one-sided or a single dyadic perspective, without taking into account that care networks of community-dwelling older adults often exist of multiple informal and formal care-givers. The current study examines discussion of care between all potential informal–formal care-giver dyads in a care network, and relates this to characteristics of the older care recipient, the care network and the care-givers. Seventy-four Dutch older care recipients provided information on all care-givers who helped with five different types of tasks; 410 care-givers reported on the contact between all care-givers identified. Multi-level logistic regression was conducted in 2,150 informal–formal care-giver dyads and revealed that in 26 per cent of all these dyads discussion on care occurred. This was more likely when both care-givers performed multiple types of tasks, the informal care-giver was residing with the care recipient, and contact within the formal and the informal sub-network was higher. To enhance discussion of care between informal and formal care-givers in care networks where no discussion occurs at all, home-care organisations may need to allocate formal care-givers who form a bridge with an extra-residential care-giver of care recipients living alone.

The benefits of engagement with social activities on health and wellbeing are widely reported by gerontologists. Less is known, however, about what drives withdrawal from and re-engagement with social activities in later life. This is an important area of research which has direct implications for public policies that aim to ensure equitable outcomes among older adults. Much of the existing literature supports continuity theory which assumes people will not alter their level of social engagement as they age or after life-changing events. This paper uses data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing over an eight-year period (2002–2010) to determine the effect of short-term changes in marital, employment and health status over an initial four-year period on the dynamics of social detachment over the following four years. We control for underlying socio-economic disadvantages built up during the lifecourse and find that these effects, including poor education, wealth and health, are the most important determinants of persistent detachment from social activities as well as movement into and out of social detachment. The effects are consistent in men and women. The effects of short-term changes in marital and employment status have little effect on social detachment. Recent deterioration in health, however, predicted movement into social detachment, which implies the relationship between health and social detachment is reciprocal.

There has long been an interest in the United Kingdom about whether and how changes in family life affect support for older people, but nevertheless the consequences of partnership dissolution for late-life support have been little researched. Using data from the British Household Panel Study (1991–2003), this study investigated the longitudinal association between partnership dissolution and two types of support for 1,966 people aged 70 or more years: (i) informal support from children in the form of contacts and help (e.g. household assistance including care), and (ii) formal support from community care services (i.e. health visitor or district nurse, home-help and meals-on-wheels). The paper also examines the level of reported support among: (i) all parents aged 70 or more years and (ii) 1,453 unpartnered parents in the same age group (i.e. those lacking the most important source of support in later life: a spouse). We found diversity in the experience of partnership dissolution in the past lives of people aged 70 or more years. Patterns of support varied by the respondent's age, whether partnered, the timing and type of partnership dissolution, and by gender, having a daughter and health status. Overall, however, partnership dissolution did not show the expected detrimental relationship with later-life support. Health needs and increasing age were strongly associated with increases in contact and informal and formal help, regardless of family history.

It is a perennial issue in the public and the scientific debate whether increased pressures to reform due to the financial crisis or population ageing erode welfare state support. Surprisingly, our knowledge of how individuals change their attitudes in hard times is still limited – both theoretically and empirically. We rely on newly available data from a survey experiment in a representative German online survey and exogenously manipulate the perceived pressure to reform (due to an ageing society). We show that people indeed change their reform preferences when faced with an ageing society: the strong opposition to increasing the retirement age decreases. Further analyses reveal that not all groups within society react to increased reform pressures in the same way: political knowledge but also political partisanship do moderate the strength and the direction of the attitude change.

This paper considers the support networks of older people in populations with a preponderance of multigenerational households and examines the most vulnerable network types in terms of loneliness and isolation. Current common typologies of support networks may not be sensitive to differences within and between different cultures. This paper uses cross-sectional data drawn from 590 elders (Gujaratis, Punjabis and Sylhetis) living in the United Kingdom and South Asia. Six variables were used in K-means cluster analysis to establish a new network typology. Two logistic regression models using loneliness and isolation as dependent variables assessed the contribution of the new network type to wellbeing. Four support networks were identified: ‘Multigenerational Households: Older Integrated Networks’, ‘Multigenerational Households: Younger Family Networks’, ‘Family and Friends Integrated Networks’ and ‘Non-kin Restricted Networks’. Older South Asians with ‘Non-kin Restricted Networks’ were more likely to be lonely and isolated compared to others. Using network typologies developed with individualistically oriented cultures, distributions are skewed towards more robust network types and could underestimate the support needs of older people from familistic cultures, who may be isolated and lonely and with limited informal sources of help. The new typology identifies different network types within multigenerational households, identifies a greater proportion of older people with vulnerable networks and could positively contribute to service planning.

This paper examines life-long singlehood and its ramifications in old age among women and men in Ireland. During the life-time of the 26 research participants, Ireland shifted from the Western European marriage pattern, characterised by high rates of singlehood, late marriage and high fertility, to declining prevalence of singlehood, higher marriage rates and lower fertility. In-depth interviews were analysed with the help of narrative analysis and grounded theory methods. We identified two main pathways into singlehood that had a long-term impact on the participants' lives. The women and men who had chosen singlehood associated this status with independence, self-fulfilment and autonomy throughout their lifecourse, including in old age. In contrast, older adults who had been constrained in their choice of marital status due to poverty, care work, family roles and cultural norms, expressed regret and dissatisfaction with their single status. In the latter group, the ramifications of the inability to actualise the roles of a spouse, parent and grandparent were particularly apposite in later life when many felt the absence of close ties and expressed loneliness. For some of the older adults who had been constrained in their choice of marital status in earlier life, the possibility of entering into a romantic relationship seemed more feasible in later life. How older adults interpret their pathway into the single status in earlier life impacts on relationship formation and life satisfaction in older age.

The study investigated housing tenure as a factor moderating the effects of loneliness and socio-economic status (SES) on quality of life (control and autonomy, pleasure, and self-realisation) over a two-year period for older adults. Data from the 2010 and 2012 waves of the New Zealand Health, Work, and Retirement Study were analysed. Using case-control matching, for each tenant (N = 332) we selected a home-owner (N = 332) of the same age, gender, ethnicity, SES, working status and urban/rural residence. Structural equation modelling was employed to examine the impact of SES, housing tenure and loneliness on quality of life over time. Emotional loneliness exerted a significant negative main effect on control and autonomy and pleasure. Tenure and SES influenced control and autonomy, but not pleasure or self-realisation. Tenure moderated the effect of emotional loneliness on control and autonomy, with the negative effect of emotional loneliness weaker for home-owners compared to renters. Tenure moderated the effect of SES on control and autonomy, with the positive impact of SES stronger for home-owners. Findings suggest that owners capitalise on their material and financial resources more than tenants in terms of their quality of life. In addition, home-ownership can act as a protective factor against the harmful effects of emotional loneliness in old age.

This paper explores the embodied dimensions of computer and internet use in later life, and examines how technology use relates to constructions and experiences of the ageing body. It is argued that previous research on technology use and embodiment has neglected older bodies, in contrast to research on gender and disability. Furthermore, while earlier theorisations presented internet use as disembodied, it is argued that the experience of using such technologies is grounded in our embodiment. In the light of these limitations and arguments for more complete theories of the body, this paper explores how technology use relates to various aspects of embodiment. These issues are examined in the light of data from qualitative interviews and time-use diaries completed by retirees in 17 households in the United Kingdom. By examining the ‘technobiographies’ of these older computer users, it is shown that changes in body techniques are prompted and in some cases required by broader cultural and technological change. The findings evince the process of acquiring computing skills as an embodied competency, and as a form of ‘practical knowledge’ that can only be ‘learned by doing’. These experiences of technology use were embedded within constructions and experiences of ageing bodies. Although the participants drew on discourses of ageing in complex ways, their coding of computer technologies in terms of the competences of youth often reproduced hierarchies between young and old bodies.

In Indonesia, as in most other societies, intergenerational relationships are considered most important for elder care. Children are expected to take care of their elderly parents. However, processes of social change such as industrialisation, urbanisation and migration can have a negative impact on care for elderly people, particularly in rural areas. This paper addresses the issue of the living and care arrangements of older people and possible changes therein. A number of hypotheses and research questions pertaining to this issue are discussed. An Elderly Household Survey was carried out among people aged 55 years and older in two different villages in the Special Region of Yogyakarta. The data concern the living and care arrangements according to the respondent’s sex, age and village. The principle finding is that most older people still live with at least one child or with other kin, or have at least one child living in the same village. Hence, they still have a potential care provider in their immediate vicinity. The situation, however, especially of women aged over 75 years, seems to be problematic.

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between spousal care-giving and declines in functioning and self-rated health among older care-givers. The authors used data from the 2000 and 2002 waves of the United States Health and Retirement Study, a biennial longitudinal survey of a nationally representative cohort of adults aged 50 or more years. Two outcomes were examined, declines in functioning and declines in self-rated health. Care-givers were classified into three groups: no care-giving, less than 14 hours of care-giving per week, and 14 or more hours care-giving per week. To assess declines in functioning, two summary scores were created of limitations in basic and instrumental Activities of Daily Living. To assess declines in self-rated health, we compared responses from 2000 and 2002. In the fully adjusted models, care-giving hours did not have an independent effect on declines in functioning or self-rated health. The relationship between care-giving hours and declines in functioning and self-rated health is probably attributable to socio-demographic characteristics, mainly age. The findings suggest that spousal care-giving does not of itself harm functional health or perceived health among older adult care-givers. Understanding the differential effects of these socio-economic characteristics with care-giving hours on health will be useful in promoting the health of older adult care-givers and treating their disorders.

A description of the social construction of dementia among elderly residents of a nursing ward is offered, based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in an Israeli geriatric centre. This account focuses on the construction of positive social identities and the ascription of roles for residents labelled as ‘demented’. The findings illustrate the split between personal and social identity in dementia. The applicability of conventional socio-psychological constructs such as ‘I’ and ‘me’ regarding dementia is questioned, as the spoken manifestations of these constructs is critically examined from a symbolic interactionist perspective.

Research on minority ethnic ageing remains a neglected area within mainstream race and ethnicity studies as well as that of social gerontology. This paper examines the background and reasons for this, arguing that a focus on minority ethnic issues provides a reminder of the complexity of the lifecourse, and of the diversity of ageing as a cultural, economic and social construction. The discussion reviews definitions of ethnicity and their relevance to work in social gerontology. The paper provides an account of early studies of minority ethnic ageing, identifying the strengths and limitations of this research. Later work is then considered, notably that focusing on issues connected with the rise of transnational communities and the changing character of neighbourhoods in urban environments. The paper argues that developing research on minority ethnic ageing has become especially important for understanding the impact of globalisation on re-defining communities, relationships and identities, within and beyond nation states. Globalisation, it is suggested, can be seen as a product of the movement of ethnic groups; equally, ethnic groups are themselves transformed by the possibilities created by global change. The paper concludes with a number of suggestions for embedding work on ethnicity within research in social gerontology.

This investigation examines the association of four measures of poverty (income-based, expenditure-based and asset-based poverty, and material deprivation) with life satisfaction. Perceived life satisfaction was measured among 1,410 older Chinese persons aged 65 and over. Besides life satisfaction and measures of poverty, the study assessed socio-demographic variables, financial strain, health indicators, and social and community resources. Those who faced expenditure-based poverty, material deprivation and asset-based poverty reported a significantly lower level of perceived life satisfaction, while the association between expenditure-based poverty and life satisfaction was found to be the strongest. Other factors that had an impact on life satisfaction included gender, education and marital status; financial strain; social support; the number of close family members and friends; self-rated health; functional capacity; perceived memory; pain; sleep quality; neighbourhood collective efficacy; and engagement in cultural and entertainment activities. From the theoretical perspective, the findings have strong implications for the understanding of the factors that shape the perception of quality of life in old age. Our results also have important policy implications for the official measurement of poverty, monitoring of the poverty situation and the development of anti-poverty measures to help older persons living in poverty to improve the quality of their lives.

This study investigates the relationship between the provision of informal care to older parents/parents-in-law and the employment status of adult children in mid-life. The study analyses unique panel data for a cohort of individuals born in 1958 in Britain, focusing on respondents at risk of providing care (i.e. with at least one surviving parent/parent-in-law) and in employment at 50. Logistic regression is used to investigate the impact of caring at 50 and 55 on employment status at 55, controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, the respondent's health status and their partner's employment status. Separate models examine (a) the likelihood of exiting the labour force versus continuing work, and (b) amongst those continuing in work, the likelihood of reducing hours of employment. Different types of care (personal, basic and instrumental support) are distinguished, along with hours of caring. The results highlight that providing care for more personal tasks, and for a higher number of hours, are associated with exiting employment for both men and women carers. In contrast, the negative impact of more intense care-giving on reducing working hours was significant only for men – suggesting that women may juggle intensive care commitments alongside work or leave work altogether. Facilitating women and men to combine paid work and parental care in mid-life will be increasingly important in the context of rising longevity.

Have changing demographics, increased life expectancy and findings about gender similarities and differences, altered portrayals of older people in American feature films during the past 65 years? We identified 3,038 films made between 1929 and 1995 in which actors and actresses, nominated at least once during their lifetimes for an Oscar award, appeared when aged 60 years or older. Academy Award nominees were selected because they offered a sample of ‘notable’ performers and an accessible database. We selected an eight per cent random sample for a content analysis of their roles. Throughout this period, men were more likely to be depicted as vigorous, employed and involved in same-gender friendships and adventure (whether as hero or villain). Women remained either peripheral to the action or were portrayed as rich dowagers, wives/mothers, or lonely spinsters. Despite changing gender roles in later life since the 1930s and despite social and economic changes for older Americans (earlier retirement age and better health are but two examples), their film roles have remained remarkably static in age and gender stereotyping. In feature films, the mask of ageing differs by gender. Male masks veil inactivity and physical changes, while female masks reveal ageist and sexist stereotypes.