Burden is today often applied to elderly people in two senses, for the fiscal load of income support and health and social care costs, and for notions and scales of care-giving effort and stress. It does not however convey straightforward meanings for its understanding is affected by two millenia of metaphorical and rhetorical usage. The use of burden tends to simplify relationships, whether between age-groups of a population or between a carer and an elderly person, and it communicates senses of a nuisance and an excessive charge. Portentous implications are invoked from biblical senses and derogatory overtones are strengthened by association, earlier this century, with racial stereotyping. An etymological survey reveals many sources of the word's versatility and rhetorical power. Important extensions of usage towards the two contemporary gerontological applications are then studied. A bibliometric examination of the surge in the word's social science use since the early 1980s is undertaken, and the paper concludes with a discussion of current usage as evidence of current attitudes towards, and constructions of, old age on the part of politicians and policy analysts.

This study employs path analysis to examine the relationship between clergy age and certain quantitative indices of church life in two samples: a sample of 1,553 villages and rural communities, ranging in size from 251 to 1,250 inhabitants and a sample of 584 suburban parishes. The data indicate that clergy aged sixty or over working in rural parishes tend to have contact with a smaller number of active church members, as indicated by attendance on a normal Sunday, than younger clergy working within comparable rural parishes, although they maintain contact with the same number of nominal church members, as indicated by the electoral roll and festival communicants. Clergy aged sixty years or over working in suburban parishes, on the other hand, have contact with the same number of active church members as younger clergy working within comparable suburban parishes. These findings are discussed in the light of a growing body of research which suggests that changing patterns of rural ministry may be generating difficulties and stresses for clergy approaching the age of retirement.

Data on a nationally representative sample of ever-married white American women born in 1900–1910 show living arrangements to be closely associated with the quality of the ageing experience (with, that is, whether these women were ageing ‘successfully’). The proportions ageing ‘successfully’ were highest among those living only with their husbands, and lowest among those living with kin other than their husbands. In between, but much closer in position to the women living only with their husbands, were those who were living alone. The paper looks at explanations accounting for these differences and considers some of the policy implications of these findings.

There is a growing interest among several disciplines in the phenomenon of the abuse of elderly people (elder abuse). This article examines how elder abuse is being constructed as a social problem and the particular conceptual difficulties which sets elder abuse apart from other forms of family violence. American elder abuse research findings are discussed focusing upon the difficulties of developing indicators of ‘abuse’ and the consequent problems of comparing findings. A lack of British research on elder abuse is noted and this deficit is examined with reference to the methodological and ethical issues of researching a sensitive topic. The way in which the research process interacts with and influences our understanding of elder abuse is examined in the light of these considerations. The article concludes with a call for greater awareness of these issues in future research on elder abuse.

Many people deny the existence and importance of sexuality among the elderly members of our population. In a time when people are increasingly tolerant of sexual self-determination for virtually every segment of our population, why do we cling to puritanical moralities and outdated ideas in our approach toward sex in ageing men and women? Reasons range from psychological conflicts to social taboos; some stem from the selfish concerns of the young, and others are rooted in the cultural stereotypes and ignorance about the sexual behaviour of elderly people. It is not easy to find research on ageing and sexuality that does not suffer from extreme sample bias or the difficulty in getting older people to speak candidly about their sexuality. This paper explores some of the issues relating to sexuality in the later years.