The 1997 conference of the International Association of Gerontology, to be held in Adelaide, Australia, is the first to be held in the southern hemisphere. If this issue of Ageing and Society is seen as a microcosm of the World Congress, this editorial provides an opportunity to bring an antipodean perspective to bear on our attempts to understand ageing and society.

In recent years, economic and social historians have made increasing use of anthropometric records (principally, records of human height and weight) to investigate changes in human health and well-being. This paper summarises some of the main findings of this research and demonstrates the remarkable increases in human height which have occurred during the course of the present century. The paper also examines the relationship between changes in average height and changes in life expectancy. Although most of the evidence assembled by anthropometric historians has been derived from records relating to schoolchildren and young adults, their work has profound implications for the study of health in old age. The concluding section examines the relevance of this work to current debates on the decline of mortality, the ‘compression of morbidity’ and the future of social policy.

Concerns over growing numbers and proportions of older people in industrialised societies have prompted interest in the development of cheaper ways of providing long-term care for older people. While debate in the UK is currently focused on the costs of residential and nursing care, other European and Nordic countries have introduced schemes designed to encourage or sustain the provision of ‘social’ care by family members, friends and ‘volunteers’, on the assumption that this can be provided at lower net public expense than either residential care or formally-organised domiciliary services.

Drawing on material from a detailed comparative study, this paper describes four different models on which such payments are currently based. These models are discussed and evaluated, taking into account factors which include the eligibility criteria for payments; maximising the autonomy of older people and family care-givers; and the relationships between financial payments and access to services.

These models locate systems of payment within the broader context of financial and service support designed to help frail older people and those who support them. They therefore highlight the importance of considering both financial support and services in comparative studies of social welfare provision. However, further evaluation and policy development is hindered by the lack of evaluation of different models of paying for care and a lack of evidence about the experiences of older people and care-givers.

Much contemporary theory suggests that, unlike works of biography or autobiography, human life itself is fundamentally comprised of disconnected moments and is thus devoid of literary form. People may seek to bind these moments together as narratives in the course of their efforts at self-understanding; but these narratives, it is often held, are little more than fictions or myths, impositions of form and order upon the flux of experience. In Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilych, we find a powerful refutation of this view. For what we see in Tolstoy's story are the grave consequences of a life lived moment to moment, without any sense of the whole. Only in the face of death could Ivan Ilych gain the requisite distance to behold the true meaning of his dismal life and only upon beholding this meaning could he see the contours of the life well-lived, that is, the life possessed of narrative integrity. By exploring the relationship between death, narrative integrity, and the radical challenge of self-understanding via the story of Ivan Ilych, the present essay seeks ultimately to identify ways in which the study of ageing might contribute to our identifying the good and virtuous life.

As we embark upon the task of editing the seventeenth volume of Ageing and Society, we can draw upon the 8,600 pages of past editions, including well over 100 articles and 250 book reviews. In the context of this steadily growing body of learning, our aim is to sustain and develop the reputation of Ageing and Society as one of the foremost international academic journals in social gerontology.

The role of older people as inadvertent exemplars of all that was good about the nation’s past is thrown into high relief when we consider representations of Britain’s ‘maritime heritage’. Yet such mythology has a longer pedigree than may at first be apparent. Victorian pioneers of photography championed the custom, dress and extended family roles of elders in fishing villages because these displayed an older moral world distinct from the sins of the city. Subsequently, the conflation of positive ageing and seaside living fuelled the promotion of health products and lifestyles, whilst the rise of the seaside holiday prompted a more humorous re-evaluation of the ageing body as typified by saucy postcards and family snaps. Alongside and related to the phenomenon of retiring to the seaside, a fresh imagery is being wrought as nostalgic images of the country’s seafaring history play heavily on the reminiscences of older people. Meanwhile, growing numbers of retirees opt for foreign travel. Focusing on a range of photographic materials, this chapter explores the continuities in perception that have connected ageing and older people with the morally and spiritually uplifting virtues of coastal communities.

The leisure of older women is subject to prejudices of both ageism and sexism. Gender roles and identities lock women into leisure which is experienced mostly within the confines of the home. The lack of material resources also limits their ability to undertake a wider range, as well as a greater number, of leisure activities within the public sphere outside the home. These conditions become emphasised in the more mature years of a woman's life, such that leisure expectations that are assumed for the Third Age seldom materialise. In the study of older women in Singapore, it was found that many engaged in home-bound activities and where these extended into public spaces, the activities conformed to gender and age expectations and according to material resources. The paper argues that leisure, especially for older women, must be contextualised; it requires an understanding of how social ideologies construct gender and age identities and roles, and therefore shape the leisure outcomes and spaces in which they are carried out.

The aim of the study reported here was to investigate the relationship between health and household composition among older people. The 1 per cent and 2 per cent SARs (Samples of Anonymised Records) drawn from 1991 British Census data were used to examine the frequency of a limiting long-term illness among older people according to different types of living arrangements. These data include the population in institutions and our results show that previous studies based only on the private household population have underestimated the prevalence of illness among older people. Long-term illness rates vary across family and household types, with higher frequencies found for those individuals not living in families (either alone or with others) or in lone parent families, compared with those living as part of a couple. Importantly, our results show a previously unreported clustering of long-term illness in households. Those over 45 suffering from a limiting long-term illness were more likely than those without such an illness, to live in households including others with long-term illness. These results indicate that health should be considered from a household, rather than just an individual, perspective. Our findings support those who have argued that families including an older ill member need more help from formal services. However, it is unlikely that this can be achieved solely by redeploying services from those living alone as long-term illness rates were also high in this group.

The aim of the study was to examine Scottish private sector employers' policies with regard to flexible working arrangements for carers of physically and mentally impaired older people. The questions addressed by this study were as follows : (1) Are employers aware of the needs of carers? (2) To what extent do they view carers' needs or responsibilities as problematic? (3) What proportion of companies have specific policies regarding flexible working arrangements to accommodate carers' responsibilities? (4) What is the ‘nature’ of these policies? (5) Are flexible policies with regard to caregiving responsibilities viewed by companies as part of ‘health promotion’ in the workplace? (6) In what ways do company characteristics influence policy on carers' responsibilities?, and (7) What, if any, initiatives have been adopted to help employees plan for caregiving responsibilities? One thousand questionnaires were sent to companies drawn from the Scottish Chamber of Commerce National Directory 1993; 32 per cent were returned completed and in time for analysis. The majority (92 per cent) of companies had never previously considered the issue of employees' elder care responsibilities. Although expressing considerable sympathy, as well as some responsiveness and flexibility with regard to working arrangements for caregiving employees, the results of the survey indicate that Scottish companies in the private sector are providing little in the way of direct or indirect support to the UK community care reforms. However, informal contacts during the project indicated that the public and voluntary sectors may be more flexible and have begun to develop specific policies with regard to the needs of caregiving employees.

The cultural strategies for the social integration of older people within their families of the three major ethnic groups in Singapore, the Chinese, Malays and Indians, is the focus of this paper. Analysis of data reveals three underlying principles, namely, reciprocity, elders as transmitters of cultural heritage, and the social significance of auspicious days and festivals. Taken together, the principles and strategies indicate the salient impact of cultural factors on the subjective experience of old age.

Current concepts of dementia often act to exclude the internal world of the dementia sufferer from consideration as a valid object of study. This paper presents a three stage model of the subjective world of dementia sufferers, drawing on ideas from both clinical and social psychology. The first stage involves the feelings engendered by the process of dementia and includes at least four discrete states: anxiety; depression; grief; and despair/terror. The second stage of the model concerns the behaviour provoked in response to the process of decline. Finally, we consider the social nature of emotional behaviour, with emotional actions falling along a continuum. The ability of an individual with dementia to engage in emotional behaviour depends upon the extent of their cognitive impairment and the social context in which they are located. This model has implications for the delivery of services, including psychotherapy, to people with dementia.

We report the findings of a survey of 104 Asian older people in Bradford. For a high proportion, their condition was characterised by poverty, limited entitlements, inadequate housing, low levels of knowledge of health and social services, and problems of access to welfare benefits, health and social care. The situation of women was of particular concern. The study also highlights the problems of divided families, caused by restrictive immigration rules, resulting in many elderly people having no family support in this country.

This article addresses the issue of the loss of identity a woman experiences when she becomes a widow. Based on an analysis of published autobiographical accounts of widowhood, it looks at how women express their experience of losing their husbands. It explicates a process of ‘identity foreclosure’ which strips a woman of her identity at every level, and the process by which the authors of these accounts have built new identities. Extensive quoting from the published accounts reveals the richness of these data and provides a feeling for the emotional impact of widowhood that women experience.

Employing a political economy analysis of need as it relates to the ageing of the population in the context of the postmodern welfare state, this paper attempts to go beyond the narrow confines of the apocalyptic demography argument that an increasing dependent older population represents social and fiscal catastrophe. Older people are caught between a social ethic which values independence on the one hand, and, on the other, a service ethic which constructs them as dependent. This paper argues that this dichotomy between dependence and independence results from a depoliticisation of need, in part the legacy of a radical individualism combined with a postmodern therapeutic ethic. The deeper issues which lie at the heart of the apocalyptic demography argument have to do with issues of need, reciprocity, and community. This paper argues further that a moral economy of interdependence, based on the notion of reciprocity, transcends the dependency/independency dichotomy, repoliticises need, and thereby creates the possibility of a revitalisation of civil society.

This descriptive study looks at what 372 Australian and 191 Israeli women, aged 18–93, consider to be the most and least important sources of meaning in their lives. The Sources of Meaning Profile (SOMP), an instrument measuring current meaning, gave rise to two major observations. First, there are considerable similarities in attributions of meaning within age-differentiated national samples. Secondly, there are similarities in meaning perceptions between age-matched groups across national samples. Participation in personal relationships was the important source of meaning in all age categories, in Israel and Australia. Leaving a legacy for the next generation, participation in religious activities, and taking part in pleasurable (hedonistic) activities were among the least important sources of meaning cited by both samples. Meaning variables related to the realisation of individual potential (e.g. personal growth, creativity, etc.), were the most differentiating for the Australian age groups, while variables related to altruism, humanistic, social and cultural concerns were the most differentiating for the Israeli women. Theoretical implications are discussed.

As part of a wider study of family caregiving, a sample of 297 women caring for an ageing parent were identified through a random statewide telephone survey involving over 26,000 households in Victoria, Australia. In addition to elder care, half these women were in paid employment and a third had dependent children. Overload was highest for carers with multiple roles, particularly those of parent or worker. Resentment in the caring role was highest for those who had fewer roles apart from elder care, particularly those who had quit work, and those without a partner. Life satisfaction was higher for partnered and working carers. These findings highlight the need for structures to support carers to maintain multiple roles, including greater flexibility in the workplace and encouragement of greater reliance on informal networks and formal services, both of which require increased societal acknowledgment of the elder care role.

Lasting words can be defined as verbal messages that are remembered over many years and considered by the recipient to have had a significant influence on his/her life. The study of lasting words is proposed as a supplement to existing approaches to the older person as a communicator and, in particular, to intergenerational communication. A sample of 148 independent-living older adults was asked to share words that had made a lasting impression, and to indicate what lasting words they would like to impart to other people. Parents, teachers, and grandparents were the most common source-persons for the lasting words reported by the elders in this sample. Late childhood and youth were the time periods in which most lasting words were received. Statements of general moral principles and admonitions specific to the recipient were the most common types. Some older people, however, reported derogatory remarks that had remained with them throughout their lives. In passing lasting words on to others, no older people in this sample offered communications of a derogatory nature. The value of education and the importance of giving first priority to one's own family were the most frequent themes of lasting words they would pass on to the next generation. It would appear that attention needs to be given both to the theme and substance of the message, and the total context in which the messages are communicated. Limits of this preliminary study and implications for further research on intergenerational communication are discussed.

The study involved a sample of eight moderately to severely demented elderly people who used psychogeriatric day services. Counselling skills were used by the interviewer to investigate informants' recall of emotional memories. Interviews were normally carried out individually each week over a number of months. Between thirteen and twenty-five interviews with individual informants were recorded and transcribed. The data form a series of longitudinal case-studies, analysed using quasi-judicial methods (Bromley 1986), and with a grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Over time, it became apparent that each case-study revealed fragmented pieces of an informant's personal narrative. The emotions associated with their past experiences appeared to provide a strong cue to recall and formed a significant feature of their accounts as well as providing all informants with narrative identity. For some informants, this sense of narrative identity began to dissolve as their illness progressed and their stories faded from memory. For other informants, whose memories were not so devastated by their illness, it remained with them. Although outcomes varied for all informants, all experienced varying levels of increased well-being. The data may have important therapeutic implications for the care of dementia patients through the development of reminiscence work. Attention is drawn to some theoretical implications for understanding the relationship between emotion, memory and dementia.

A comparison between humour and ageing from the 1970s to the 1990s and findings from a historical study of how American artists portray older adults showed what appears to be little change in stereotypical representations of older people in one of the most widely read forms of humour in American popular culture, the comic strip. Variables were age, gender, and roles of people 56 years and over in strips published in the Washington Post during April of 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, and 1992.

The number of older characters in American comic strips declined in the last ten years of the study. Men were more frequently represented than women. Women were almost equal to men in strong, positive roles despite the fact that they were represented 870 times and men 1511 times. Most women were portrayed in either positive or negative roles while a quarter of men were portrayed in indeterminate roles. The negative roles of women were double those of positive or strong roles, while the number of negative roles for men was three times the number of positive roles.

This article addresses the subject of the role of older women in nineteenth-century North America. Existing historical accounts of the lives and position of older women in Canada and north-eastern USA are both partial and flawed, focusing mainly upon negative images of older women in poverty or in subjugated, passive domestic roles. These images of women's roles are based upon nineteenth-century guides and manuals which tended to portray later life as bleak, unfulfilling and restricted. However, through an examination of diaries and other biographical material describing the everyday lives of middle class women, contrasting evidence emerges of active and powerful roles and positive views of later life. It is argued that the examples discussed are not exceptional cases but rather are representative of a wider nineteenth-century pattern of older women undertaking satisfying and vital social roles within their family and community networks.