This article proposes that the quality of physical care is an important determinant of quality of life for dependent people. It begins by reporting the findings of a qualitative analysis of physical care in six local authority homes and suggests a framework for understanding the ways in which physical care practices evolved. The paper concludes by illustrating how the same framework can be used as a basis for improving the quality of physical care.

This article is based upon a chapter in a book to be called Britain! Be Your Age! It begins with a discussion of schemes for dividing the life-course, describes the fresh division to which the title the Third Age belongs and refers briefly to a general theory of the Third Age. It is claimed that the Third Age as thus defined did not emerge in Britain and other Western countries until the 1950s, nor did it become a settled feature of their social structures until the 1980s. Expectation of life in a number of countries, developed and developing, is contrasted, and a comparison is undertaken between life expectation in the contemporary Third World and that in England in the historical past, that is since the early 16th century. It is concluded that contemporary developing societies have much longer life expectation than that in the English past, but markedly fewer elderly people. The implications of this for the modernisation theory in relation to ageing are drawn out, and the concept of modernisation shown to be unacceptable to historical sociologists. A Third Age Indicator (3AI) is then suggested, expressing the probability of a person of 25 years attaining 70 years. The Third Age is defined demographically in a two-fold way, as a condition of a population in which the general expectation of living from 25 to 70 is 0.5 or over for men, and so more for women, and of 10% or more of the whole population being over age 65. 3AIs for a number of contemporary countries are then presented, along with those for England since the 1540s. A list of countries demographically qualified on the two counts is then drawn up, along with the appropriate dates of their attaining that status.

Difficulty in adjusting to retirement has consistently emerged as a problem for approximately a third of retirees. A body of research has converged on a description of the poor adjuster as one in poor health, with inadequate income, a negative pre-retirement attitude, but with an increased likelihood of adaptation over time. Findings relating to other factors such as socio-economic status, occupation, activity, career fulfilment, job satisfaction and work commitment are far less conclusive, with interpretation hampered by a failure to control for the more well established correlates of retirement adjustment. This paper reviews the empirical work in this field, evaluates the goal hierarchy model and the political economy of old age literature as bases for explaining differences in retirement adjustment, and proposes a theoretical framework for future research which brings these two perspectives together.

This paper draws on gerontological studies conducted in Poland over the last 20 years to outline a number of changes in the socio-economic circumstances of the elderly population. It begins by examining the impact of demographic factors, with particular emphasis on the post-Second World War migrations and the more recent move to the towns, and goes on to describe trends in health and functional status. It is shown that self-assessed health and even life expectancy have decreased over the last five years, and a number of explanations are suggested. The main part of the paper uses national surveys conducted in the 1960s and in the 1980s to identify changes in the family situation of the elderly. Despite an overall reduction in many forms of family support, it is shown that help from parents and children has increased particularly over the last five years. It is concluded that while various services need to be developed along Western lines, this development should be accompanied by a strengthening of various forms of family care.

Those 85 years of age and older are the fastest growing subpopulation in the United States. Because they represent a very small proportion of the population (just 1% in 1980), the oldest old have not been studied until recently. Much of the interest in this group is related to their growth (over 50% per decade in the past 50 years) coupled with their disproportionate use of public resources, particularly health and social services. Women are strikingly overrepresented among the oldest old, with a gender ratio of approximately 44 males for every 100 females age 85 and older.

From the confrontation of fiscal austerity and growing needs in the United Kingdom has come a new ideology: ‘efficiency-focused mana-gerialism’. Common arguments and the adaptation of structures to reflect them can be seen in all areas of policy, but nowhere more clearly than in the long-term social care of the elderly, the subject of this paper. Perhaps the strand of policy analysis which most influences and epitomises the new managerialism is the work of the Audit Commission for Local Authorities in England and Wales, whose arguments and proposals have gained great and widespread influence. The commission's ‘three Es’ – economy, efficiency and effectiveness – have become among the most fashionable slogans of our time.

The Danish Early Retirement Pension Scheme (ERPS) introduced in 1979 was intended to contribute to the reproduction of the social order and to the legitimation of the welfare state. The first objective was not achieved. Nevertheless ERPS reduced total unemployment by about 20% and thereby contributed to the positive image of the welfare state.

Survey data show that the poorer the working conditions the stronger the probability that the eligible take early retirement. High rates of unemployment in industries with physically and psychologically onerous work increase the probability of early retirement. Taken together with employers' wishes for as large as possible a labour reserve and their ambivalent attitude to the total withdrawal of marginal workers, these findings render the debate about voluntary versus compulsory withdrawal from the labour market at best insignificant and at worse misleading.

At the same time, ERPS has brought some unintended but quite considerable improvements to the lives of many recipients. These include better self-assessed health, increased contacts with family and friends and new leisure activities. Recently, however, there is evidence of an increase in economic deprivation among recipients, and early retirement pension levels have not kept pace with rises in industrial earnings or the cost of living.

This paper uses nationally representative data from the General Household Survey for 1980 to investigate the household structure of the elderly in Britain. Household structure is analysed in terms of its relationship to the marital status, age, gender and physical disability of the elderly person. 79% of the elderly either live alone or with their spouse only. As many as 95% of all the elderly in non-institutional accommodation retain their own households – of the rest, the majority move to live with married children, most usually daughters.

Analysis of the kin support networks of rural elderly, resident in Staffordshire and Hampshire, indicated that the most important factor affecting both the patterns and relationships of the kin network is the residential mobility of the nuclear family and its members. The study revealed the importance of recognising three broad groupings of elderly: the indigenous aged, who typically possess an extended local kin network; the retired inmigrants who had relocated their households to be near kin; and the retired inmigrants without nearby kin. When these groupings are introduced the importance of the dichotomy between local/non-local kin and between former kin-separation/non-kin-separation becomes apparent. These dichotomies hold important implications for the family relationships of the rural elderly, for their use of the kin network and of the formal support system, and for their interaction with the wider community.

This study develops and tests a causal model of social service use by USA Puerto Rican elderly. Andersen and Newman's Health Framework was employed to classify and test a model of social service use by a national random sample of mainland USA Puerto Rican elderly. The findings indicate that 7 of the original 27 variables (i.e. need for social services, awareness, functional literacy, functional ability, mobility, income and contact with friends and neighbours) accounted for 43% of the variance in use. Counter to our theoretical assumption the need factor accounted for more variance than the enabling factor. Moreover, the predisposing factor and informal support variables were important predictors of utilisation.

The characteristic features of institutional life can be found in all types of long-term hospitals and homes for old people. They occur in all countries despite radical differences in the structure of health and social care provision. This paper draws upon data from a study of British residential homes to present an account of institutional life from the consumers' perspective. Residents' views are drawn from open-ended interviews with 60 residents. They convey a complex mixture of feelings: gratitude, resentment, resignation, powerlessness, acceptance and dependence. The common expressions of boredom and loneliness reflect a poor quality of life for many residents. A surprising degree of tolerance was shown by lucid people towards those who had become confused. The authors argue that elderly residents are faced with a choice between an unpleasant battle to survive in their own homes and an equally unpleasant enforced dependence in the institution. The views of residents ought to be an important factor in the evaluation of institutional care.

Analyses are presented of data from the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) Longitudinal Study; a record linkage study in which one per cent of the 1971 Census population has been followed up using routinely collected demographic data. The data set includes the 1981 Census records of sample members. The results show that between 1970–1 and 1980–1 there was a fall in migration in the retirement age groups. In both periods there were differentials in rates of migration, particularly between counties, according to variables such as tenure, economic position and Social Class. Tenure, marital status and economic position were together good predictors of male retirement migration 1970–1 but not of 1980–1 migration. The drop in migration rates between the two periods was greatest among the younger retired and owner occupiers.

The transition from independent living to a residential home or to sheltered housing challenges the resilience of all elderly people. This paper reports a study which used longitudinal design, within which 455 Dutch people were interviewed twice a year over a five-year period. Drawn from five different groups, the sample represented people at different stages of independence, ranging from those who needed no assistance through to a group of new residents in an elderly persons' home. The focus was on preparedness for and the adaptation experience of relocation to a dependent setting. A battery of psychological, social and medical measures was employed to produce serial data which were subjected to discriminant analysis. The dominant finding is that attitudes to dependency are central to the maintenance of self-esteem and well-being.

The ‘person–object relations’ of the elderly has yet to be fully exploited as an opportunity for gerontological research and insight. We have yet to examine in any exhaustive way how elderly people treat consumer goods and consumption activities as sources of cultural meaning, and how they manipulate this meaning in order to accomplish certain kinds of social and cultural work in their lives. The object of the present paper is to review the emerging field of person–object studies and to note three of the research objectives that emerge from it for the study of people in later life. It will examine the way in which they use objects (1) for mnemonic (aide-mémoire) purposes, (2) to negotiate transitions in self and status definition, and (3) as instruments of cross-generational influence. Each of these questions will be discussed with illustrative material from an ethnographic research project now in progress. Practical implications of each question are noted.

The Swedish population is one of the oldest in the world with the consequence that the country has a very high proportion of long-term institutional beds to meet the care needs of elderly people. Studies of the pathways to institutional care showed that alternative home care options had been given too little consideration and that a quarter of residents could have been satisfactorily supported in the community. The Sundsvall Intervention Programme was based upon a distribution of these research findings to institutions and practitioners, followed by a joint training programme on assessment and resource allocation. The first phase of the intervention yielded an unrealised potential for elderly people to remain at home; but it met continuing resistance from professionals and kin. The exercise indicates the need to combine service innovation with locally relevant systems which engage all of the interested parties – elderly people, their relatives, care providers, service managers and politicians.