‘Ageing in place’ initiatives form an important part of broader ‘ageing well’ strategies that are being developed in response to demographic change. Increasingly, it is acknowledged that it is important to understand how individuals shape and modify the space within their own home and immediate environment to facilitate flexible solutions in the event of a loss of independence. The research presented here aims to understand how individuals construct the space both within their own home and their immediate surroundings and how this construction is linked to their own perception of ageing and growing old. A thematic analysis of 28 qualitative interviews resulted in two differentiated responses in relation to home adaptations: those respondents who had acted to modify their home and environment and those who instead sought to delay or ‘put off’ any modifications. The results demonstrate the multi-dimensional experience of ageing, the diversity of types of home environment, and the interplay between compensatory solutions and the social contexts within which they take place. The need for a more holistic approach that takes into account factors such as an individual's experience of ageing is suggested in order to understand the use of space in home environments and the adaptations that are made to them. Policy initiatives for ‘ageing in place’ can be reinforced by closer user involvement.

This paper emanates from a small-scale qualitative study, currently in progress, looking at the implications for older people of decisions made by a social services department that they are ineligible for service provision. While the operation of eligibility criteria in the UK has been shown to exclude an increasing number of prospective users from receiving a service, little is known about how those refused a service contend with their difficulties or the implications these strategies have for them. The paper focuses on themes that have emerged during the first phases of the study in relation to how older people endeavour to manage their ‘unmet need’. It is suggested that a key integrative theme concerns their efforts to maintain a positive sense of self indicating, it is argued, the need for processes involved in the seeking, receiving and giving of help to be managed in a way that sustains the sense of self of the older person.

Workplaces, managers and employers who are seeking to maintain the standing, capacities and productivity of their workplaces are now facing two crucial facts: (a) an ageing workforce and (b) all workers, regardless of age, need to adapt to the changing requirements for workplace performance. These facts mean that managers and supervisors need to confront issues found in the changing demographics of their own workforce. That is, as the portion of workforces aged over 45 years (i.e. older workers) increases, it is these workers who are available to be employed, and supported in sustaining their ongoing employability. To address these issues requires understanding of particular workers' capacities and aspirations and then acting to develop further their capacities based on new understanding, and rebutting social sentiments about these workers that are often value-laden, contradictory and biased. The case here is made through drawing on literature and analyses of interview data of Australian managers of older workers, that the current logic of management relies upon deeply held and widely shared beliefs of age-blind meritocracy and equal opportunity rather than informed views.

The article explores the interplay between bodily and cultural ageing in the provision of clothing for older women, examining how design directors of UK clothing retailers act as cultural mediators, shaping the ways in which later years are imagined, experienced and performed at an embodied level. Based on interviews with clothing retailers with a significant involvement with the older market: Marks & Spencer, George at Asda, Jaeger, Viyella and Edinburgh Woollen Mill, it analyses the contexts in which they design, discussing: the potential of the grey market; the association of fashion and youthfulness; and the tensions between lifestyle and age in the formation of the market. It explores the ways in which they adjust the cut, colour and style of clothes to meet the requirements of older bodies and the changing cultural interpretations of these, addressing debates around the interplay of bodily and cultural ageing, and the role of consumption in the constitution of age. Reflecting both the cultural and material turns, it argues for the need to expand the social gerontology imaginary to encompass wider sources shaping the meanings of later years.

People with dementia are finding increasingly creative and diverse ways of making their voice heard in society and one such method is through the publication of autobiographical accounts. Following set inclusion criteria, this meta-ethnographic analysis compares and contrasts the contents of 12 books written by people with dementia and published between 1989 (the year of publication of the first text) and the end of 2007 (the selected cut-off point for inclusion). Of the 12 books, three authors were published twice, five were male, eight were from the United States of America, one was Australian and all nine had a professional background. Eight of the authors had Alzheimer's disease and one had fronto-temporal dementia. The average age of the narrator was 51.5 years (age range 38–61 years). Meta-ethnographic analysis of the 12 books inductively generated five themes that linked each story and these were: (a) awareness of change; (b) experiencing loss; (c) standing up and bearing witness; (d) sustaining continuity; and (e) liberation and death. The importance of reconstructing identity appeared a pivotal process in living with the onset and progression of dementia together with maintaining key social relationships and networks.

A group of 141,345 immigrants from the Netherlands Antilles, a former colony, live in the Netherlands. An increasing number of these migrants are at or above retirement age, and for them, the question of where they want to grow old becomes relevant. It is important for people to age in a place where they feel at home, as attachment to place increases wellbeing in old age. In this article we discuss how older Antillean migrants in the Netherlands make their house and immediate living environment into a home. We focus on home-making practices in a broader cultural context, and in relation to wellbeing. These topics are addressed by drawing on qualitative life-history interviews with Antillean older people, who live in a co-housing community for older adults. It turns out that objects which remind the participants of their home country play an important role in making a home. Also, the community, with people from similar backgrounds, contributes to a sense of home. Finally, the presence of children and other family members is a key motivation for the participants' decision to age in the Netherlands.

Research describing the social world of elderly residents of nursing homes is organised in this paper into three levels of analysis: the institutional level, the relational level and the interactional level. The significance of each level is highlighted, with special attention being given to the interactional level of analysis and the study of language within the nursing home. Data gathered from semi-structured interviews with both elderly residents and nurse aides are presented and interpreted as evidence of interactional problems which may emerge in the resident–staff relationship. Implications and future prospects of incorporating the three levels of analysis into the study of the psychosocial well-being of nursing home residents are considered.

Staying socially engaged is known to improve health and longevity in older people. As the population ages, maintaining levels of social engagement among older people becomes increasingly important. Nevertheless, advancing age brings with it many challenges to social engagement, especially in rural areas. A three-year Australian Research Council Linkage Project sought to improve understandings of age-related triggers to social disengagement in six Tasmanian communities that are representative of rural Australian experience, and thus of wider salience. A collaboration between academics and health and social professionals, the project investigated design solutions for service frameworks that may be useful before ageing individuals become isolated and dependent, and that may support those individuals to actively contribute to and benefit from social life. The purpose of this paper is to report on perspectives about diminishing levels of social engagement held by older rural participants and service providers, and to advance a number of key insights on ways in which to nurture social engagement and improve the experience of ageing.

How long do people want to live? Why do some people want to live a very long time, and others would rather die relatively young? In the current study we examine the extent to which the preference to die young (<80 years, less than average life expectancy) or to live somewhat longer or much longer than average life expectancy (90-99 years or 100+ years, respectively) is related to a person's positive and negative expectations of what their life will be like in old age. We use multinomial regression analysis based on survey data from a large sample of younger and middle-aged adults in the United States of America (USA) (N = 1,631, age 18-64 years). We statistically control for socio-demographic characteristics as well as self-reported happiness and health. We find that having fewer positive expectations for their own old age distinguishes people who prefer to die relatively young, while having fewer negative expectations distinguishes people who want to live beyond current levels of life expectancy. The results provide evidence that pessimistic expectations of life in old age can undermine the desire to live up to and beyond current average life expectancy. The study also provides descriptive data about how young and middle-aged adults in the USA anticipate their own ageing.

This study examines the potential health-related impact of recent versus lifetime experiences of sexual orientation discrimination among older Australian lesbian women and gay men. In a nationwide survey, a sample of 243 lesbian women and 513 gay men aged 60 years and over reported on their experiences of sexual orientation discrimination and their mental and physical health, including psychological distress, positive mental health and self-rated health. Among both lesbian women and gay men, recent discrimination uniquely predicted lower positive mental health after adjusting for experiences of discrimination across the lifetime and socio-demographic variables. In addition, recent discrimination uniquely predicted higher psychological distress among gay men. Experiences of discrimination over the lifetime further predicted higher psychological distress and poorer self-rated health among gay men after adjusting for recent experiences of discrimination and socio-demographic variables. However, there were no associations between lifetime discrimination and any of the outcome variables among lesbian women. Overall, recent and lifetime experiences of sexual orientation discrimination were related to mental and physical health in different ways, especially among the men. These findings have potential implications for policy/practice, and suggest that distinguishing between recent and lifetime experiences of discrimination may be useful when assessing potential health-related impacts of sexual orientation discrimination among older lesbian women and gay men, while also taking account of differences between these two groups.

This article reports on a recent survey of employer attitudes and policies towards older workers in Australia at a time of sustained economic growth and ongoing concerns about labour shortages. Findings from a survey of 590 employers with more than 50 employees in the State of Queensland point to an unusually strong orientation towards the recruitment of older workers among respondents, although the retraining of older workers is not prioritised by the majority. The issue of workforce ageing is viewed as being of medium-term importance by the majority of respondents, although for a substantial number the issue is of immediate concern. Both sector and organisation size are predictive of the application of a broad range of policies targeting older workers, with public-sector and larger organisations more likely to be active. Concerns about workforce ageing and labour supply are predictive of employer behaviours regarding older workers, suggesting that sustained policy making may be emerging in response to population ageing over and above more immediate concerns about labour shortages and that this broad thrust of organisational policy making may be immune to the point in the economic cycle. This study found no evidence that the flexible firm will not countenance an ageing workforce.

Elderly people are often seen as the recipients of informal care. In the study reported here, there are clear indications that carers of mentally handicapped people are predominantly female and often beyond retirement age. For some the task is burdensome, but for many it provides a reciprocity both of care and of companionship. Older carers are observed to receive more professional aid than younger carers. But as demographic trends make this caring relationship more common it will be necessary for formal support systems to become more integrated and comprehensive.

This article is based on an international study which investigated innovations in home care for the elderly in three European countries:Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It is argued that the particular changes taking place in services for the elderly may be indicative of what will happen more generally throughout welfare systems. This is because patterns observed in an area of acute pressure are often precursors of further developments. Welfare systems change first at points of pressure where established policies and solutions are no longer working or cannot be sustained. Innovation and reform become necessary. This is certainly true of social care policies for the elderly in industrial countries. It is no coincidence that in each of the three countries we studied government has commissioned major inquiries into the operation of the care system and that the early 39905 will see the introduction of substantial reforms. We argue that the changes that are taking place, although mediated by particular national traditions and politics, have much in common. They are part of a shift away from the state-dominated post-war welfare settlements towards more diffuse and pturalist forms of social care. The frail elderly, for demographic and etonomic reasons, are in tne front line of this shift to new patterns.

This paper examines the ways in which older people depict verbally the life changes that accompany old age. It reports a study of Japanese elderly women's casual conversations with their friends, during which they talked about their husbands' deaths and illnesses. A frequently observed discourse practice among old people is ‘painful self-disclosure’ (PSD), in which unhappy personal information on one's ill health, immobility or bereavement is revealed and speakers describe themselves using negative stereotypes of old age. During the observed conversations, however, the PSD accounts were frequently accompanied by humour and laughter. This paper examines the complex structure of the PSDs. To exemplify, a simple statement of death and illness given early in a conversation is later elaborated with descriptions of unremarkable domestic events, e.g. complaints about the husband's behaviour. Through shifting the frame of the narrative to quotidian normality, the elderly speakers convert painful life events to everyday matters that they can laugh about. Furthermore, it was found that the humour is sustained through interactions during which the hearers often laughed with the speaker. The study suggests that the disclosure of age-related negative experiences is not necessarily uniformly gloomy, but rather is combined with expressions of personal and social identities and nuanced and modulated through a complex resolution of the speaker's intentions and social expectations.

We studied how older people describe others with cognitive impairment. Forty-two focus groups represented African Americans, American Indians, Chinese Americans, Latinos, Vietnamese Americans, and Whites other than Latinos (Whites) (N = 396, ages 50+), in nine locations in the United States of America. Axial coding connected categories and identified themes. The constant comparison method compared themes across ethnic groups. African Americans, American Indians and Whites emphasised memory loss. African Americans, American Indians, Latinos and Whites stressed withdrawal, isolation and repetitive speech. African Americans, American Indians, Vietnamese Americans and Whites emphasised ‘slow thinking’. Only Whites described mood swings and personality changes. Many participants attributed dementia to stress. Terms describing others with dementia included ‘Alzheimer's’, ‘dementia’, ‘senile’ and ‘crazy’. Euphemisms were common (‘senior moment’, ‘old timer's disease’). Responses focused on memory, with limited mention of other cognitive functions. Differences among ethnic groups in descriptions of cognitive health and cognitive impairment underscore the need to tailor public health messages about cognitive health to ways that people construe its loss, and to their interest in maintaining it, so that messages and terms used are familiar, understandable and relevant to the groups for which they are designed. Health promotion efforts should develop ethnically sensitive ways to address the widely held misperception that even serious cognitive impairment is a normal characteristic of ageing and also to address stigma associated with cognitive impairment.

Identity theory suggests that individuals who perceive their family roles as salient and feel competent in their performance have greater psychological well-being than others. This paper assesses the ways in which aspects of parent, grandparent and great-grandparent role investments affect self-esteem, levels of depression and affect-balance. The 188 respondents with an average age of 73 years were participants in the University of Southern California Longitudinal Study of Generations and occupied all three roles at the time of measurement. They self-assessed quality of performance, importance to one's identity and satisfaction in their family roles. Overall, levels of role investment declined consistently with greater lineage distance from parent to great-grandparent. Latent correlations showed that parent role investment was most highly associated with well-being, followed by investment in grandparent and great-grandparent roles. Structural equation modelling, however, revealed no unique effects on well-being for any of the three roles (as a result of high inter-correlations). All three role structures formed a single meta-construct that was positively related to psychological well-being. It is concluded that the strength and consequences of inter-generational role investments were hierarchically structured by relational proximity, but also manifested in a single integrated family identity, which suggests that there are two competing and complementary views of family role structures in later life.

Compared to younger age groups, older people spend more time in their locality and rely more heavily on its pedestrian and public transport infrastructure. Qualitative studies provide unique insight into people's experiences. We conducted a qualitative evidence synthesis of United Kingdom-based studies of older people's experiences of travelling in the urban environment. We searched health, social science, age-related and transport-related databases from 1998 to 2017. Fourteen papers (from 12 studies) were included in a thematic synthesis, a three-staged process that moves iteratively between codes, descriptive themes and cross-cutting analytical themes. Emerging themes were discussed with policy advisers. Four overarching themes were identified. The first and second theme pointed to the importance of ‘getting out’ and of being independent travellers. The third and fourth themes highlighted how local environments and travel systems enabled (or prevented) older people from realising these valued dimensions of travel. The loss of local amenities and micro-environmental features, such as pavement quality, personal safety and aesthetic appearance, were recurrent concerns. Free modes of travel like walking and bus travel were highly valued, including the social engagement they facilitated. Our review suggests that, while its extrinsic value (reaching destinations) matters, the intrinsic value of travel matters too. The process of travel is experienced and enjoyed for its own sake, with older people describing its contribution to their wellbeing.

Asset-based thinking is increasingly prevalent in health policy and is to be found also in discourses on social care. This article explores and critiques the applicability of asset-based approaches to social care for older people, using Carol Bacchi's analytical framework to consider developments in the United Kingdom especially. The problem construction, assumptions and suggested solutions underpinning an asset-based approach are considered in turn. The paper draws two major conclusions. The first is that, while it has potential application to the field, the key assumptions and objectives of the asset-based approach do not hold well for social care and therefore adopting the approach carries risks. The paper concludes, secondly, that an asset-based approach is ‘over-promised’ in the sense of being insufficiently theorised and lacking empirical evidence. A number of suggestions are made for greater critical interrogation, improved empirical evidence and closer scrutiny of the policy ‘solutions’ associated with assets-related thinking.

In the United Kingdom, as in many other developed countries, there is an established market in the provision of long-term care-homes for older people. Implicit in the market mechanism is the assumption that homes will close, but it was not until 1999–2000 that closures of care-homes received widespread public attention. This paper draws on a multi-method study that investigated home closures in England from several perspectives. The rate of home closures rose substantially between 1998 and 2000 and, although sources give different estimates, it subsequently appears to have remained at about five per cent each year. The net result has been a reduction in capacity, particularly in smaller homes. While their emphases differed, both regulators and providers broadly pointed to the same factors behind the closures: the local authorities, the majority purchasers of care-home places, were under pressure to keep fees down, and national policies that raised costs were coming into force or were anticipated, notably the National Minimum Wage and the National Care Standards. Other factors, such as problems in recruiting suitable staff, particularly those with nursing qualifications, also played a role. The government's response, driven primarily by concerns about the effect on delayed discharges from acute hospital beds, was to retreat on the Standards and to increase funding to local authorities. While this has been a helpful step, more needs to be done to prevent good homes closing and to provide incentives that will retain and promote diverse provision.

For some time in Britain, it has been difficult to recruit clinical psychologists and other health professionals to work with older people. This pattern of under-recruitment has also been reported in other countries. With the growing number of older people in western societies, the issue of under-recruitment warrants further attention. This research reported here aimed to explore this issue among the next generation of clinical psychologists: those currently training. Questionnaires were posted to 25 of the clinical psychology training courses in the United Kingdom, and 371 trainees returned questionnaires. Among the questions posed, the trainees were asked to set down their thoughts as to why it might be difficult to recruit to the older adult specialty and how recruitment could be improved. The results suggest that many trainees believe that clinical psychology, despite many recent advances, has less to offer older people than other age groups. The responses contain evidence of both ageism and the fear of ageing and death. To improve recruitment into the older adult specialty of clinical psychology, the predominant recommendations were for good quality placements and teaching during training, as well as a need for improved marketing by clinical psychologists working in this specialty, and also for improved support, terms and conditions.