The significance of home is broadly recognised as representing selfhood, safety and autonomy. For older people, especially those with dementia, the ability to age in place at home can be threatened by a necessary move into a care home. Home has heightened importance for people with dementia. We know most people want to stay in their own homes, but there is limited research which explores what home means for people with dementia when they move into care homes. Based in a care home in regional New South Wales, Australia, this study used the arts-based method, body mapping, to explore what home meant to people with dementia and/or cognitive impairment. Seven body maps were co-created by current residents (four), family members and supporters (six) and researchers (three). The findings of the body-mapping process highlighted that home is much more than a physical location. Home meant having the ability to carry out practices and rituals, use objects, maintain relationships and experience sensations that are personally meaningful, and which differ from one person to the next. Their body maps revealed that in care homes, people could not ‘do home’ anymore because many of the practices, objects, people and places that mattered to them were no longer accessible. Body mapping was a useful method that facilitated the exploration of a holistic expression of home that would not have been possible with more traditional methods. For people with dementia, home was not only embodied and spatial, but also temporal, helping us to understand the ways in which care homes might facilitate a greater sense of home for people with dementia.

Older adults were particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic, necessitating significant efforts to avoid contamination. This extraordinary situation posed an increased risk of mental pressure, and the ability to handle stressful situations is affected by several aspects. Therefore, this study aims to explore the coping strategies employed by older adults during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. A sample of 41 Swedish older adults aged 70–85 participated in phone interviews regarding their experiences with social distancing due to COVID-19. The interviews were conducted between April and May 2020, with nine follow-up interviews conducted in November and December 2020. The findings revealed results that despite the challenging circumstances, the participants demonstrated a strong mindset and resilience. Strategies utilised to improve their wellbeing and manage the situation included following recommendations, accepting the situation and maintaining a positive outlook. The influence of previous experiences on their coping strategies was evident. Additionally, the participants expressed a longing for their relatives and a need to adopt new technologies to manage their everyday lives. The follow-up interviews indicated no significant changes in worry or behaviour; if anything, participants were less worried at the beginning of the pandemic. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion on vulnerability among older adults by highlighting the diverse range of coping strategies employed during a prolonged crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic. It demonstrated that though they are medically vulnerable, they are situationally resilient and, in many ways, well set to handle a challenging situation. During crises, older adults might need practical assistance. On the other hand, they can be a resource regarding mental preparedness during crises. Further research should explore the possibilities of balancing the needs of older adults and, at the same time, viewing them as a resource during long-time crises.

Existing research on housing cost burden focuses on its evolution over time. Few empirical studies, meanwhile, investigate changes in housing cost burden as a function of age. Literature is also scarce on how people’s housing cost burden is affected by the act of retiring. In order to fill this research gap, we examine how the burden of housing costs tends to change after retirement and how the impact of retirement on housing cost burden differs for tenants as compared to homeowners. Taking advantage of the longitudinal data provided by the German Socio-Economic Panel (1993–2019), we estimate fixed effects regressions and model impact functions to estimate how people’s housing cost burdens change after they retire. In addition, we interact the retirement event with tenure status. Our results show that retirement is associated with an increase in housing cost burden and that this association is stronger among tenants than among homeowners. We contribute to the literature on housing cost burden by taking a longitudinal perspective and showing that critical life events such as retirement do have an impact on the financial pressures exerted on households by housing costs and can even exacerbate the existing inequality in terms of housing cost burden between tenants and homeowners. We also demonstrate the importance for policy makers and future research of identifying social groups that may be particularly prone to financial overburden as a result of elevated housing costs in old age in order to implement policies that avoid such overburden and prevent the increase in social inequality after retirement.

The relationships that care home staff have with their co-workers are a key influence on the way they feel about their work and how they perform in their roles. This has a direct influence on quality of care and life as experienced by residents. However, care home providers face a challenge to promote co-worker relationships because: (a) the care home workforce often lack human resource oversight; (b) registered managers (and nurses), who often lack leadership training, are tasked with managing the working relationships of staff, the majority of whom are care workers of different ages, ethnicity and cultural beliefs; and (c) most (care workers) do not have any formal qualifications and are not routinely provided with the communication skills to facilitate collaborative working in dynamic and pressured climates. In this forum article, we consider these challenges and their implications for collaborative co-worker relationships, before highlighting opportunities for research, policy and practice. An important starting point is to focus on developing the leadership skills of staff at all levels and provide care workers with the skills they require to manage their working relationships and support them in their everyday work for the benefit of residents.

Successful ageing continues to be a key theme in contemporary ageing discourses, where good physical and cognitive health in older age is an individualised responsibility. This paper explores how Australian aged care stakeholder discourse contributes to constructions of self-responsibility for brain health and dementia prevention in older persons. Brain health advice messages about diet, exercise and ‘brain fitness’ by aged care stakeholders are argued to construct a moral framework of ‘brainwork practices’ to prevent or delay dementia. This study performed discourse analysis of a sample of public online aged care stakeholder documents (N = 170) to reveal three key concepts in discursive constructions of dementia. The first concept characterises dementia as a disastrous force to be opposed; the second is a biomedical concept of dementia as preventable (or able to be delayed) in a ‘successful’ older age, while the third reflects neurocultural ideas that fetishise perfect memory as the best defence against cognitive decline and dementia. Identifying this matrix of responsibilising ‘brainwork practices’ messages by aged care stakeholders makes a contribution within social gerontology to revealing neoliberal conceptions of older age as an outcome of lifestyle and consumer choices, where dementia is constructed as ‘failed’ or ‘unsuccessful’ ageing.

Aboriginal Elders in Australia are recognised as having an important role as community leaders and cultural knowledge holders. However, the effects of colonisation and institutional racism mean Elders also experience significant social and economic disadvantage and poor health outcomes. There has been a systemic lack of attention to the worldviews and priorities of Aboriginal people as they age. In this article, we detail the findings of a qualitative study using a localised Aboriginal Elder-informed methodology that involved interviews and focus groups with 22 Aboriginal Elders in the remote town of Walgett on what ageing well means to them. This study was undertaken as part of a long-term partnership between a unique community-controlled Elders organisation and a university. The findings illuminate the barriers and enablers to ageing well for Aboriginal people in Walgett and elsewhere, and demonstrate the value to research, policy and service delivery of listening to and learning from Elders, centring Indigenous knowledges and worldviews, and bringing a more holistic conceptualisation of wellbeing to the understanding of what it means to age well.

Widowhood is often described through stereotypes and images of passive, weak, lonely and dependent women. This study presents additional aspects of widows who have chosen to continue their lives without a new spouse. It thus joins the recently growing body of knowledge which presents widowhood in a less one-dimensional way while referring to the complexity and different layers of widows' lives. A qualitative study was conducted with 30 women aged 63–87 who had been widows for 1–34 years. The findings showed that the dominant experience shared by all women is one of liberation and freedom – a feeling of independence that is expressed socially, personally and economically. Thus, alongside feelings of loneliness and adaptation difficulties, they also experience strength and empowerment. The term ‘gender contract’ serves as a theoretical explanation of the independence narrative that characterises the widows; the termination of the couple's gender contract allows them to redefine their priorities, identify themselves as active instead of passive figures and create for themselves a place of their own. By bringing widowhood to the centre of the discussion, the study gives legitimacy to a discourse on feelings less spoken about, such as relief, freedom and independence. In this way, the study contributes to the ongoing debate on widows by shattering the accepted myth of widows as vulnerable, weak and dependent but without underestimating the difficulties or ignoring the women's diversity.

Older adults who have had a major depressive disorder (MDD) have a high risk of relapse. Although risk factors for depression have been researched extensively, less is known about protective factors, and what experiences might strengthen subsequent resilience and help to prevent relapse. Therefore, this qualitative study explored factors of resilience in older adults who recovered from MDD and did not relapse across at least six years. Twenty-five semi-structured interviews were held with older adults aged 73–85 years who participated in the Netherlands Study of Depression in Older Persons from 2008 to 2014 and were re-interviewed for the present study in 2020–2021. Participants were defined as resilient based on having an MDD diagnosis at baseline but not on two- and six-year follow-up. We used grounded theory coding techniques and thematic analysis to identify factors contributing to resilience. Factors contributing to resilience included: taking agency; receiving social support and engaging in social activities; doing activities individually; and managing thought processes. Resilience after late-life depression appeared to be a dynamic process involving internal and external factors, including finding a balance between rest and activity, between taking initiative and receiving support by others, and between accepting negative emotions and ignoring negative thoughts. Additionally, the ability to learn from depression shows that resilience is not only about avoiding psychopathology, but also about the recovery process and preventing relapse. These findings highlight the need for research and interventions to focus on understanding and influencing the dynamics underlying resilience.

In the light of an increasing future demand for long-term care services in ageing societies, families’ provision for current and future long-term care needs has been subject to debate. Within this context, there is little discussion about parents’ incentives to socialise their children to their own traits to achieve a desired child behaviour. Our study contributes to the literature by analysing to what extent parents transmit filial norms to their children and whether this transmission process affects children’s care-giving behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. Using data from the German Family Panel, we initially analyse the transmission of filial norms from mothers and fathers to their children. Second, we examine the importance of filial norms that prevail in the child’s local environment. Third, we assess whether an intergenerational transmission of norms transmits into child behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. We estimate linear regression models and account for child and parent characteristics as well as for the living environment. The results show that children have stronger filial norms when both parents report stronger filial norms. But, children also tend to be influenced by average norms in their local environment. Furthermore, children are more likely to provide support to a parent in need when their filial norms are stronger. We conclude that children’s filial norms are at least partially shaped via a process of socialisation and that these norms transmit into children’s care-giving behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. It is, therefore, important that filial norms that prevail in a society are in accordance with the institutional long-term care system that prevails within that country.

Older adults who age at home independently are often celebrated as having anticipated and planned for their care needs in the later stages of life, whereas those who receive assistance from home support services are often stigmatised as dependent and characterised as a ‘drain on the system’. However, this thematic analysis of interview data from 12 home care clients in two Canadian provinces offers evidence that counters the assumption that home care clients are passive recipients of care. Extending Corbin and Strauss' theorisation of how individuals manage chronic conditions alongside Dorothy Smiths' conception of work, we explore how home care clients ‘work’ to receive care as they age in place. Specifically, home care clients not only engage in daily life work, illness work and biographical work, but also advocate for themselves and their workers, co-ordinate and negotiate with members of their caring convoys and networks, and adapt in various ways to navigate personal, relational, structural and policy-level challenges. We suggest that work done by older adults who are ageing in place be addressed, acknowledged and incorporated into care planning and operational policy development to challenge both the stigma of dependency and neoliberal narratives of self-sufficiency.

The COVID-19 pandemic foregrounded a numerical conception of age. Many of the targets of proposals to introduce age-specific restrictions are members of the ‘baby boomer’ generation, a generation that is widely recognised as having a youthful approach to ageing. Attending to arguments that baby boomers are a ‘bridging’ generation – i.e. they share cultural orientations with both preceding and succeeding generations – we argue that ‘bridging’ is a dynamic practice. Drawing on repeat interviews with 45 ‘war baby’ and baby boomer women conducted prior to the pandemic and shortly after the first national lockdown, the paper demonstrates how lockdown restrictions brought to light older women's relationships to, and investments in, spatial mobilities. We focus on how they experienced and understood (im)mobilities in three realms: home life, going places and social connection. Pre-pandemic, mobilities in each of these realms had been important to how the women established youthfulness and resisted being seen as ‘old’; mobilities helped older women ‘bridge’ with younger adult generations. This bridging was undermined practically, symbolically and discursively by their experiences of the lockdown, with profound consequences for perceptions of their ageing. Restrictions on spatial mobilities created conditions for older women to reassess and narrate the social world in generational terms. Their narratives provide an illuminating case study of the complex ways that generational cohort shapes experiences and self-understandings. We argue that the capacity of baby boomers to ‘bridge’ dynamically is a legacy of their youth.

Oldest-old (age 80+) spousal care-givers of people with dementia experience unique challenges and concerns that they attribute to age and/or ageing, including difficulties providing care because of physical, cognitive or sensory decline; having fewer friends who can provide practical support; and having less energy for non-care-giving activities (e.g. leisure activities, self-care). Previous research on how older care-givers manage is not specific to oldest-old care-givers and may underrepresent their unique experiences managing age and ageing-related challenges. A limited understanding can compromise our ability to tailor services to ageing care-givers. The purpose of this research was to illuminate how oldest-old spousal care-givers of people with dementia manage ageing-related care-giving challenges and the barriers and facilitators to strategy use. The selective optimisation with compensation theory and the transactional theory of stress and coping informed our conceptualisation of management strategies. We used a narrative gerontology approach, with two or three semi-structured interviews with 11 care-givers aged 80–89 (25 interviews in total). Narrative data were analysed thematically. We identified four main themes that encompassed the strategies shared by care-givers: adjusting goals to lessen care-giving demands and to mitigate stress, using alternative means to reach goals and to mitigate stress, enhancing capacities to care and mitigate stress through engagement in non-care-giving activities, and choosing positive attitudes and perspectives to lessen emotional distress. We identified a myriad of facilitators and barriers to strategy utilisation in each theme. The study provides unique insight into care-givers' management strategies, especially in relation to relocation of self and spouse and participation in non-care-giving activities, as well as insight into age-related facilitators and barriers. This research can ultimately help inform the tailoring of age-sensitive health and social care services to meet the needs of this group of care-givers as they age.

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted concern about the wellbeing of older people, however, there have also been accounts of increased sense of community in response to the disruption of established routines. To explore how older people experienced lockdown in Aotearoa/New Zealand, we analysed 635 written comments on the 2020 wave of the Health, Work and Retirement longitudinal survey of people aged 55–85 years. Using narrative genre analysis, we discuss two narratives of lockdown: a narrative of lockdown as ‘idyllic’ and a ‘dystopian’ narrative of distrust. Using the idyllic narrative, people described pleasant activities and linked these stories to earlier times when community life was less time-pressured and people were more connected to one another. The dystopian narrative was used to describe politicians and the media as untrustworthy and to depict new vulnerabilities created by the rules of lockdown. These narrative genres provide different positions for older people. In the idyllic narrative, older people are treasured and supported by younger community members, whereas in the dystopian narrative older people feel abandoned and manipulated. These genres draw on possible late-life futures that are familiar to older people: either treasured or discarded. Identifying these narrative genres reveals the different vulnerabilities older people experience. This information can be used to support older people to experience security and to flourish in uncertain times.

Previous research has highlighted the importance of past life experiences in the theoretical and conceptual understanding of loneliness. However, adding a lifecourse perspective to loneliness research remains underexplored. To comprehend the complexity of loneliness in old age, it is crucial to pay attention to the lifecourse perspective. This study addresses an important lifecourse perspective on loneliness through an in-depth, narrative approach. Building on the cognitive discrepancy theory, this study examines how precipitating events and coping strategies throughout the lifecourse may influence current feelings of loneliness in older adults. We qualitatively examined the experienced lifecourse of 20 lonely older adults living in Belgium by applying a modified version of the McAdams life-story interview scheme. Next, we conducted eight member-check interviews. A first finding provided insight into the importance of precipitating events during the lifecourse for current loneliness. The results pointed not only to the lifelong impact of events during childhood and adulthood, which may lead to vulnerability to loneliness later in life: unrealised life events (e.g. not being able to have children) as well as events with no impact earlier in life nevertheless turned out to be relevant in the emergence of loneliness later in life. Second, the narratives revealed that several older adults who experienced loneliness earlier and later in life continued to use the same coping strategies throughout the lifecourse, whereas by contrast some older adults adapted their coping strategies based on previous experiences and improved their loneliness-coping skills. It also appeared that changes in people's resources, such as the presence of physical limitations, may make it more difficult to cope with loneliness in later life. The discussion makes a plea for lifelong prevention of and attention to loneliness.

Recent studies provide evidence that the coverage of older people's issues in the mass media during the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by a (re-)emergence of negative stereotypes surrounding the question of age. However, these studies primarily relied on written materials. As visual imagery has the power to attract greater attention than words, this study set out to investigate the visual portrayal of older adults in the mass media. Via web crawling, we identified a total of 3,560 articles with keywords such as ‘older adults’ and ‘COVID-19 pandemic’ in the four most popular online news sites in Germany during the first phase of the pandemic. We applied visual content analysis to assess the frequency of a diverse set of characteristics of older adults in the cover photos of the articles in question (N = 604). Older individuals were most often depicted as physically weak, alone, professionally taken care of, passive, living at home or in a nursing home, and cognitively inactive. The images – mostly of female passing persons – were characterised by a stereotypical presentation that evokes distance to the subject by cropping out any faces. Our results reflect findings on the negative media representation of older adults as homogenously vulnerable in verbal materials during the COVID-19 pandemic in contrast to increasingly diverse representations in pre-pandemic times. This stereotypical misrepresentation of older adults can be interpreted as visual ageism, which is amplified by their visual othering. Our findings demonstrate the need for the media to reflect upon these practices as negative age stereotypes have an impact on mental health for people of all ages.

Given the significant impact the pandemic has had on the lives of older adults, research is needed to understand how conceptions of ageing in place and attitudes about living independently may have shifted during a time marked by significant environmental change. There is a gap in knowledge about how older adults characterise positive support for ageing in place in response to rapid changes in physical and social environments, including home confinement, reduced social interaction and greater barriers to resources. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a photovoice study with community-dwelling older adults (N = 17) to understand how their experiences of adapting to pandemic conditions influenced their attitudes and behaviours towards ageing in place. We organised data into five themes: (1) the importance of proximity to family and loved ones; (2) the ability to balance safety and social connectivity; (3) an increased appreciation for the outdoors; (4) new platforms for learning; and (5) the role of inner belief systems. Adapting attitudes, expectations and behaviours through physical, social and personal domains highlights the role of change within an ecological framework of ageing. Findings contribute to the ongoing discourse about ageing in place within an ecological framework by identifying changes that older adults make at individual, interpersonal and system levels. This paper adds to the literature by identifying characteristics of ageing in place that community-dwelling older adults prioritise in the pandemic era. The paper also contributes to a growing body of research that elicits participation and offers the co-creation of knowledge with older adults. Lessons learned from the pandemic will continue to shape and inform future policies on ageing in place.

Late-life divorce is increasingly common in many Western countries, however, studies on this transition remain scarce. The purpose of this article is to study attributed reasons for late-life divorce, and if any life phase-typical aspects can be identified in these attributions. Qualitative interviews were carried out with Swedish men and women aged 62–82, who after the age of 60 had divorced from a cross-gender marital or non-marital co-habiting union (N = 37). The results, analysed using principles from Grounded Theory, revealed four different types of narratives: (a) incompatible goals for the third age, (b) personality change caused by age-related disease, (c) a last chance for romance, and (d) enough of inequality and abuse. A central insight and an original contribution generated by the study was the importance grey divorcees attributed to the existential conditions of later life in their divorce decisions. The results are discussed in relation to theories of late modern intimacy and the third age.

The aim of this paper is to review the social constructionist view of age and ageing that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It begins with a general consideration of social constructionism as an epistemological framing of the world, before turning to its use in social gerontology. It considers two distinct social constructionist approaches treating later life as a social reality: (a) as a structural consequence of the rise of the modern state and its organisation of the labour market and (b) as a consequence of shifting cultural and social representations. Arguing that the earlier more structuralist accounts have gradually become overshadowed by concerns over age as identity, socially constructivist approaches now place as much emphasis upon the social representation of age as on its social-structural organisation. The paper then reviews the costs and benefits of social constructionism in general and its becoming a key part in the study of ageing. Its benefits arise from drawing attention to the salience of the cultural and the social in fashioning age and ageing and thereby advancing the sociology of later life. At the same time, social constructionist approaches to old age risk neglecting an other personal and social reality arising from corporeal decline and fear of the body-to-come. The paper concludes by noting how, whether approaching ageing and old age as natural kinds or as human kinds, adopting biological or sociological methodologies, all such methods privilege the externality of age – whether as a social or a biological fact. What is not captured by either is the problematic internality of age. What might be called the subjectivity of age will remain a topic for cultural representation, beyond the methods of both biological and social science.

Ageing-in-place has become an internationally favoured policy and practice response to population ageing. However, limited literature has sought to understand this concept from Chinese older adults' perspectives, especially in rural China. The purpose of this study is to explore how older adults in rural China conceptualise ageing-in-place. This study took a qualitative approach by carrying out in-depth interviews with snowball-sampled older adults from a rural village in Shandong Province, China (N = 30). Participants conceptualised their ageing-in-place as consisting of two phases: first, when they felt self-reliant, these older adults preferred to live independently in the village; and second, when their capability declined, they would expect care-giving from their children. Autonomy was essential to participants' decision to age in place. The village offered both a physical and social environment in which participants could sustain their self-identity. This decision to age in place independently also related to participants' proactive adaptation to their children's evolving practices of filial piety. Still, had their capabilities declined, they reported they would expect their children's care-giving and move in with their children. Our findings suggest that older adults in rural China conceptualise ageing-in-place as a dynamic process that evolves as they age and experience changes in their needs and capabilities. This perception expands critical notions of ageing-in-place by highlighting rural older adults' flexible conceptualisation of the ‘place’ in which they plan to age. This study sheds light on socioculturally nuanced understandings of ageing-in-place while providing evidence to inform tailored policy and practice development in rural China.

Companion animals, or ‘pets’, are integral to many people's lives and to their sense of home. However, older people living with companion animals are vulnerable to separation from their animals when moving to a care home. Such separation is often a highly significant loss which, combined with other losses, may reinforce experiences of dislocation. Existing research draws attention to the importance of developing a sense of ‘home’ in a care home through reinforcing and preserving personal connections. However, there is a paucity of research examining the preservation of connections between older people resident in care homes and their animal/s. This study draws on thematic analysis of 29 qualitative interviews with older people living in care homes, relatives, care home staff and other relevant stakeholders. It highlights that retaining existing, often long-term, bonds with companion animals represent important continuities and connections which may contribute to positive adjustment to life in a care home and creating a sense of home. However, participants highlighted that supporting an older person to move into a care home with their companion animal may be challenged by real or perceived constraints such as use of shared space, concerns about the risks posed by animals and staff implications. While our study found examples of good practice of how shared residence between an older person and companion animal can be achieved in a care home, other examples highlighted that the time, complexity of planning and structures required to accommodate animals were prohibitive to merit a change of policy and practice. Our research concludes that more attention should be given to the older person–animal bond as an important source of continuity and connection.