The purpose of this study was to examine how older people make sense of their capacity to maintain sports performance. Performance maintenance is predominantly examined from a quantitative perspective, with little attention given to how people themselves account for it. We interviewed 44 competitors (23 females, 21 males) from the 2009 Sydney World Masters Games (aged 56–90 years; mean = 72 years). The major themes were: ‘Use it or lose it’ (performance preservation required specific ‘training’ and the continuation of general physical activity); ‘Adapt’/‘modify’ (participants compensated for their decline in speed, strength and endurance so they could continue competing in sport); ‘It's in my genes’ (participants attributed their ‘family history’ and/or innate ‘determination’ to performance maintenance); and ‘I like to push myself’ (participants valued improved performance, pushing their bodies and winning which motivated them to continually train and compete). The findings are discussed within a framework of three key performance maintenance theories: (a) preserved differentiation, (b) selective maintenance and (c) compensation. Although compensation and continued training are effective ways to counter decline in later life, this study extends past research by showing how older athletes tend to combine and/or generalise stable and unstable attributes of performance preservation. In particular, this research highlights the importance individuals and Western society place on self-responsibility for health, competition and performance maintenance, which act as key motivating factors.

Translation of falls prevention evidence into practice is problematic. Understanding older adults’ views about falls prevention information could enhance delivery of falls prevention, resulting in better engagement and uptake of recommended activities. The aim of this study was to examine the views and preferences of community-dwelling older adults about seeking and receiving falls prevention information. A community forum using a modified World Café approach was conducted. Participants discussed five topic areas in small groups, under the guidance of table facilitators. Perspectives were captured on paper. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify factors that influence participants’ engagement and uptake of information. Seventy-three older adults participated in the forum covering wide-ranging preferences around falls prevention information. Personal experience was considered the key influence on an older adult's decision to initiate seeking information. While health professionals were often approached, alternative sources such as public libraries, peer educators and seniors’ organisations were also favoured as credible sources of information. Older adults proposed falls prevention information should be delivered with a positive tone, coupled with highly valued qualities of respect, empathy and time to listen to foster motivation to engage in recommended activities. Consumer-focused practical strategies were proposed to potentially improve future design, communication and dissemination of falls prevention information. This improvement could enhance engagement of messages and subsequent uptake of falls prevention recommended strategies.

This paper reports the findings of a one-year qualitative investigation of the memories and activities of people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. We observed and interviewed 58 patient-carer dyads during home visits. The progression of the dementia symptoms was documented, and information was collected on social-relational events, as well as accounts of awareness, attention and anticipation, which are often neglected in research that focuses on the activities of daily living. The participants identified problems that were important to them; those with Alzheimer's disease were aware that they were not as attentive as they once had been, that they could no longer rely upon the memory of, or consciously recollect and relive, a past experience, and that the future was more difficult to anticipate. The participants' accounts describe relationships, memories and abilities – or ‘memor-abilities’ – of a past and their effects on their present and future. Our findings differ from clinical representations of memory located solely in the individual. Instead, memories are regarded as a synergistic package of both social and individual meanings that ‘leak’ between the two. What experimental psychologists interpret as systems and processes are played out in the everyday world of people with Alzheimer's disease as contextual, bounded and interdependent states of awareness, attention and anticipation. We maintain that memory is simultaneously individual and social, and that memorabilities are shared, co-constructed events and experiences in the past, present and future.

Multi-disciplinary and inter-disciplinary working has for long been advocated in gerontology, and sometimes contested. Although collaboration between disciplines is common practice in many areas of ageing research, much remains to be done to develop and support such work. Internationally, funding agencies, scientific associations and other stakeholders in ageing research are actively involved in establishing the methods and means to promote cross-disciplinary co-operation in the field. In the United Kingdom (UK) since the late 1990s, the statutory Research Councils with key interests in ageing and older people have been actively pursuing research programmes that feature multi-disciplinarity and inter-disciplinarity. The National Collaboration on Ageing Research (NCAR), a partnership among four of the Research Councils to stimulate cross-disciplinary collaboration, worked with scientists, funding bodies, and research users to develop approaches to multi- and inter-disciplinary research, and their work informed the New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) Programme, a major cross-Research Council programme of multi-disciplinary research which spans the social, medical, biological and engineering sciences and the arts and humanities. Drawing on the authors' participation in these activities, this article reviews key developments in the promotion of multi-disciplinary science on ageing in the UK and highlights how this is being pursued in the NDA Programme.

In this article I critically examine the biology/culture dualism in the context of old age. Regarding the contextualisation of the interrelationship between biology and culture, previous studies have not adequately explored the interaction between the physiological process of ageing, the physical and social surroundings of the body and the body's intentionality. I suggest ways in which anthropological and feminist advances in deconstructions and reconstructions of the body can be deployed in the study of old age. In particular I draw upon Margaret Lock's concept of ‘local biology’. This offers an opportunity for the development of gerontological theory that focuses upon the interactions between the ageing body, its experience and its locality.

Migrants make up a significant and growing proportion of the aged-care workforce in Australia. Using data from the 2016 National Aged Care Workforce Census and Survey, we investigate employment conditions for Australian-born and overseas-born frontline workers working in residential and home-based aged care, focusing on two key poor job quality indicators. We find that migrant home care workers from non-English-speaking background (NESB) countries are the most likely to be employed on a casual basis and to report hours-related underemployment. Migrant residential care workers from English-speaking background (ESB) countries are more likely to be casual while NESB migrants are more likely to be underemployed. Controlling for a range of employment and socio-demographic characteristics, we find that being an NESB migrant is significantly associated with both casual status and underemployment. Generally, while this association lessens with years spent in Australia, exposure to casual employment is amplified over time for NESB migrants in the residential sector. Holding a temporary visa increased the likelihood of casual employment for residential care workers and underemployment for home care workers. Working for a for-profit employer was also associated with poorer job quality. Further policy shifts in Australia towards temporary migration and increased marketisation of aged care may impact on the working conditions of migrant aged-care workers.

Dignity is a universally important issue for all people, and particularly vital for older adults who face multiple losses associated with ageing. In the United States of America and beyond, the maintenance of dignity is a key aim of policy and service provision for older people. Yet surprisingly little research has been conducted into the meaning of dignity to community-based older adults in the context of everyday life. As life expectancy continues to increase worldwide, unprecedented numbers of people are living longer than ever before. The majority of older adults will face declining health and other factors that may impact dignity in the course of ageing in their communities. This paper reports on a study that explored older people's understandings and experiences of dignity through focus groups and a survey. Three key components of dignity are identified: autonomy, relational and self-identity. In addition, the paper discusses a range of factors that can facilitate or inhibit a sense of dignity for older people, including long-term health issues, sensory deficits and resilience to life events. Finally, the implications of these findings for policy and practice are considered in the context of American social structures and values.

In this comparative study focusing on the population aged 50 and over in three European countries, we investigate the association between household debt and depressive symptoms, and possible country differences in this association, using data from Waves 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 of the Surveys of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) for Belgium, France and Germany. Multi-level regression models with random intercepts for individuals were used to analyse the association between household debt status and number of depressive symptoms (EURO-D score). Country differences in the household debt–depression nexus were tested using country interaction models. After controlling for other measures of socio-economic position and physical health, low or substantial financial debt was associated with a higher number of depressive symptoms in all countries. Housing debt was strongly linked to depressive symptoms for women while the association was weaker for men. The only country difference was that for both sexes substantial financial debt (more than €5,000) was strongly associated with depressive symptoms in Belgium and Germany, but the association was weak or non-significant in France. Associations between financial debt and depression were also evident in analyses of within-individual changes in depressive symptoms for a longitudinal sub-group, and in analyses using a dichotomised, rather than a continuous, measure of depression. The findings indicate that measures of household indebtedness should be taken into consideration in investigations of social inequalities in depression and suggest a need for mental health services targeted at indebted older people.

National surveys show that people from minority ethnic groups tend to be less satisfied with social care services compared with the white population, but do not show why. Research indicates that barriers to accessing services include lack of information, perceptions of cultural inappropriateness and normative expectations of care. Less research has examined the experience of minority ethnic service users after they access services. This study conducted in-depth interviews with 82 South Asian and White British service users and family carers, the majority of whom were older people. Thematic analysis was used. The key theme was understanding the social care system. Participants with a good understanding of the system were more able to adapt and achieve control over their care. Participants with a poor understanding were uncertain about how to access further care, or why a service had been refused. More White British than South Asian participants had a good understanding of the system. There was more in common between the South Asian and White British participants' experiences than might have been expected. Language was an important facilitator of care for South Asian participants, but ethnic matching with staff was less important. Recommendations include better communication throughout the care process to ensure service users and carers have a clear understanding of social care services and hence a better experience.

This paper examines how older adults living in rural Malawi explain and understand their sex lives. We present sex in this setting as a field in which broader understandings of ageing, aged identities, and conceptions of person- or adulthood in older age are played out and constructed. Qualitative data were collected from men (N=20) and women (N=23) aged 50 to around 90 using in-depth multiple dependent interviews (N=135) between 2008 and 2010. The giving and receipt of sexual pleasure was considered natural and God-given. Primarily understood as a matter of ‘power’, sex was on the one hand, beneficial to older bodies, but on the other, not accessible to such bodies. Declining sexual frequency was associated with declining desire for sex, or frustration stemming from continued desire for sex. These discourses emerged from the way the ageing body was constructed as a weakened body, incompatible with understandings of adulthood based on physical productivity. Older men and women used sex to discursively respond to these challenges to their adulthood in two ways. Firstly, sex was used to confirm strength, physical productivity, and therefore, identity as an ‘adult’. Secondly, adulthood itself was redefined as being based on moral, rather than physical productivity, and refraining from sex was used to demonstrate wisdom, self-control and therefore their ‘adult’ identity. Our results provide in-depth understanding of the ways constructions of ageing and sex can influence complex experiences of marital and non-marital sex in older age. We contribute to debates on sexuality in the gerontological literature by moving discussion beyond the presentation of continued sexuality as somehow exceptional or an indicator of successful ageing. Finally, in a setting of considerable HIV prevalence at older ages, our results challenge a preoccupation with fertility and chronological age in the collection of sexual health data in Africa.

Understanding how psychosocial factors can promote better cognition in mid- and later life is important for making recommendations regarding policies and intervention programmes. This study focuses on two psychosocial aspects (social connectedness and social engagement) in order to assess their independent contribution to explaining cognition, but also how their interrelationship acts on cognition. We hypothesised that each of the factors is positively associated with cognition, but also that a combination of both factors contributes more to cognition than each of the factors independently. Our sample comprises 66,504 individuals who participated in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Multilevel linear regression analyses were performed. The results show that higher levels of social engagement and social connectedness are associated with improved cognition. When studying the interaction of social engagement and social connectedness and its association with cognitive function, the analysis shows that better cognitive scores are found in individuals having high levels of both social engagement and social connectedness. Moreover, when one of these aspects is lacking, the other plays a role in cognition protection. This study indicates the importance of social connectedness and social engagement for preserving/developing cognition, which greatly contributes to the quality of life of middle-aged and older adults.

Researchers and international organisations frequently suggest that older women are disadvantaged in comparison with older men. This analysis of census and survey data from Thailand, however, indicates a far more complex association between gender and various aspects of ageing. Through an examination of various demographic, economic, psychosocial and health variables, it is found that older Thai women do face certain disadvantages compared to their male counterparts, including lower education and literacy, far higher levels of widowhood and living alone, and a lower likelihood of receiving formal retirement benefits. Older Thai men, however, also face relative disadvantages, including worse survivorship, a lower likelihood of receiving money from adult children, a greater probability of debt and other financial problems, and lower satisfaction with their financial situation. Many other demographic, psychosocial and economic measures are not significantly associated with gender. Our analysis provides some support for a lifecourse perspective, that relates gender differences in old age to differences in earlier life experiences, roles and reward structures, particularly access to retirement pensions and the type of support older men and women provide for their co-resident children. Marital status often mediates gender differences in wellbeing among older people. The study concludes with research and policy recommendations.

Within research on ageing in neighbourhoods, older adults are often positioned as impacted by neighbourhood features; their impact on neighbourhoods is less often considered. Drawing on a study exploring how person and place transact to shape older adults’ social connectedness, inclusion and engagement in neighbourhoods, this paper explores how older adults take action in efforts to create neighbourhoods that meet individual and collective needs and wants. We drew on ethnographic and community-based participatory approaches and employed qualitative and geospatial methods with 14 older adults in two neighbourhoods. Analysis identified three themes that described the ways that older adults enact agency at the neighbourhood level: being present and inviting casual social interaction, helping others and taking community action. The participants appeared to contribute to a collective sense of connectedness and creation of social spaces doing everyday neighbourhood activities and interacting with others. Shared territories in which others were present seemed to support such interactions. Participants also helped others in a variety of ways, often relating to gaps in services and support, becoming neighbourhood-based supports for other seniors. Finally, participants contributed to change at the community level, such as engaging politically, patronising local businesses and making improvements in public places. Study findings suggest the potential benefits of collaborating with older adults to create and maintain liveable neighbourhoods.

This paper presents a critique of both the concept of age equality and of the limited scope it offers as a means for challenging old-age prejudice. The equality constructs that feature in anti-ageism initiatives and in current discourses on intergenerational equity have proved susceptible to political and ideological manipulation, which has led to the illegitimate dissociation of ageism from older age and promoted damaging notions of age equivalence. The consequence has been that old-age prejudice has been de-prioritised, and older people have been de-legitimised socially and as a welfare constituency. The corrective is best sought outside the confines of age equality frameworks, although legal remedies may play a useful role if human dignity is incorporated as an equality criterion. This paper also assesses other approaches to tackling old-age prejudice that avoid the constraints of equality constructs and engage more firmly with its roots. The notion of the ‘third age’ with new social roles merits reconsideration as an affordable alternative to current policies of work obligation and pension retrenchment. Radical interventions in the labour market in favour of older people may also be needed. Age activism and advocacy will increasingly influence policy on prejudice and well-being in older age, but changed emphases are needed, as from defensive strategies and the ideologies of generational interdependence and solidarity, towards the promotion of organisational, financial and social autonomy in older age.

By providing information on society at large, the media help to establish and maintain relations between various social groups, such as between younger and older people. They may also disturb the formation or maintenance of such relations, e.g. by stimulating the ‘othering’ of the out-group members. The aim of the present study was to trace how the different strategies of ‘othering’ are applied by Dutch news media in their portrayal of older and younger citizens. The analysis showed that the most notable discrepancies in the media coverage of the two age groups appear in (the nature of) their evaluation. While the negative descriptors of older characters relate more frequently to their (alleged) incompetence, the negative depictions of younger actors refer predominantly to their lack of benevolence. In the case of positive evaluations the reverse is true: older characters are more often presented as warm and younger people as competent. The results of the study are interpreted in the light of literature on social distance and (social) practices of ‘othering’.

It is noteworthy that while modernisation, together with population ageing, has happened in Western countries for a rather long period of time, China must confront the challenges of an ageing population before it really becomes an advanced industrial society. Facing rapid societal changes, citizens may react differently to this process. By conducting questionnaire surveys with 445 elders in Wuhan, China, this study examines Chinese older adults' individual modernity modes and reveals its socio-demographic correlates. The results show that facing rapid changes in societal modernisation, participants have reacted differently to this process, with 23.8 per cent of Chinese older participants using an accommodation mode, 27.0 per cent using a resistance mode, 13.3 per cent using a withdrawal mode and 36.2 per cent using a coping mode. In addition, socio-demographic factors such as urban–rural residence, age, gender, socio-economic status, living arrangement and daily activities have been identified as significant correlates of Chinese older participants' individual modernity modes. It is further suggested that governments at all levels should allow for options and opportunities for older people to align themselves in the modernisation process by removing the barriers that may hinder their integration and empowerment efforts. While it is important to respect older adults' different responses in the face of modernisation, their participation in societies should be encouraged and respected by the wider society in the context of modernisation.

Inter-vivos financial transfers from older parents to their adult children are widespread in the United States. Childless people may simply make fewer transfers. On the other hand, because their giving is away from children, their decisions are more complex in that there are multiple potential targets of approximately equal attractiveness. Using data for 1996 to 2004 from the United States Health and Retirement Study, this article examines the differences between parents and childless older people in financial transfers to people other than their children. The results show that, overall, parents tend to give less than the childless to other people. However, some variation is found depending on the nature and target of the gift. Having children does not affect giving to charities but does reduce the prevalence of giving to parents, but not nearly as much as the reduction in giving to family and friends. It can therefore be concluded, first that there is little substitution between personal and impersonal transfers; secondly, that the sense of obligation to parents is not reduced by giving to charities or to children; and thirdly, that having children reduces the need to satisfy the desire for family and social ties by means of links to family and friends.

The changing nature of family life has become a major issue in contemporary Britain. Concerns that change will bring moral decline and social fragmentation are countered by a more optimistic view which focuses on a future of more equitable and flexible family ties. Research drawing on area-based data in Luton amongst older, middle-aged and younger people with experience of family change suggests that so far as inter-generational relations, caring, and transfers of family wealth are concerned, traditional attitudes towards blood ties, household independence and care and support survive alongside new step relationships. The research also suggests that although several respondents had more than one generation of experience of family change, the language of step relationships is still one which is not yet completely accepted, or one with which people feel completely at ease.

Walking is an essential component of outdoor mobility, and recognised as one of the best forms of physical activity for older adults. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between socio-demographic factors, coping resources, self-esteem and health status with the outdoor walking ability of people aged 55–79 years living in the community. The hypothesis is that there is a positive association between outdoor walking ability and coping, self-esteem and health status. A nationally-representative sample of 3,069 women and men answered questions regarding socio-demographic attributes, coping resources, self-esteem, health status and outdoor walking ability. The mean age of the respondents was 65.6 years. Around one-half of the sample were women, and around one-half were aged 65 or more years. One-third (32.3%) of the sample were married or cohabiting. Regarding outdoor walking ability, only 0.7 per cent of the respondents were not able to walk at all, and 80.8 per cent could walk at least one kilometre without a pause. Binary logistic multivariate regression analyses showed that those who had good outdoor walking ability (one kilometre or more) were significantly younger than those who did not, and that they were predominantly men, partnered or married, not in paid work, experienced significantly little pain, had better self-reported health and higher perceived coping.

Long-term care (LTC) planning is important in helping the older people tackle their future needs better. The needs for LTC services represent generational characteristics as they may be different between the current and upcoming cohorts of older adults. However, very few studies have examined the cohort differences in terms of their expected utilisation of LTC services, while understanding the patterns is crucial in helping policy makers prepare for the development of LTC services. This study fills the research gap by examining the plans and expectations for LTC services of 1,613 middle-aged and older persons in Hong Kong with data collected from a telephone survey. By applying the Andersen Model to examine LTC expectations, this study analyses the LTC needs and plans of the middle-aged and older cohorts of Hong Kong adults, as well as their associated factors, with a multiple logistic regression method. Both gender and birth cohort were examined individually and in combination. Birth cohort and gender have been found to exert an impact on all aspects of LTC needs and planning to varying degrees. The findings are interpreted and contrasted with those of a key study based in the West, with reference to the contextual characteristics of Hong Kong. This study furthers the scholarly understanding on LTC needs and planning and their cohort effect, and draws evidence-based recommendations for LTC development in Hong Kong, a rapidly ageing East Asian society.