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.

Transportation plays a vital role in meeting the daily activity needs of individuals, including older adults. One major gap in the existing ageing and mobility literature is that most studies are situated in the Global North despite Global South cities facing comparatively faster ageing. This article’s primary purpose is to examine the daily lived experiences of transportation use among older adults in Mexico City. Secondarily it explores contextual differences among individuals living in two neighbourhood types – those with high or low access to public transportation networks. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 22 older adults and isolated four central themes that encapsulate their experiences of transportation in Mexico City. The extensive and well-run structured-transit system in central Mexico City was the source of many positive experiences for older adults, especially regarding affordability, high network connectivity and overall sense of safety and comfort. This was true for most participants across neighbourhood types and socio-economic statuses. Conversely, in peripheral neighbourhoods dominated by less-structured transportation modes, negative experiences included complaints about vehicle drivers, crime and safety, comfort and convenience. This article’s contributions are showing (1) consistency with existing Global South literature whereby older adults tend to use public transportation more widely and hold similar complaints related to poor experiences as older adult passengers; (2) that Mexico City exemplifies older adult transportation experiences that are dramatically different from car-dependent societies in the Global North; and (3) how older adults’ experiences with public transportation can vary significantly based on residential location within the city.

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.

Gender and age are central organising principles of social relations, with socially constructed gendered and age-based norms influencing patterns of social behaviour, power and inequality. Despite recent literature highlighting the importance of subjective measures of equality, including as a significant predictor of wellbeing, there is a gap in studies focused on subjective equality in research on ageing. Drawing on an equality ranking exercise and life herstory interviews with 20 older-aged women (65+) in Aotearoa New Zealand, this article focuses on the intersectionality of age and gender, analysing the ways in which participants constructed their experiences of equality over the lifecourse from their standpoint as older-aged women. The analysis reveals a significant rise in subjective equality from childhood to older age, with more varied responses in childhood and a convergence of responses from adolescence onwards. Participants’ constructions of equality differed: age was the dominant construct of equality women ascribed to their childhood years, while gender inequality came to the fore during their teenage years. In early to mid-adulthood, women found ways to navigate gendered inequality in various life domains, while in older adulthood equality was constructed as freedom and life satisfaction. This trajectory suggests that the frames individuals use to make sense of equality and their personal experiences are not fixed; they are fluid and shift throughout the lifecourse.

Sweden and West Germany have had persistently high divorce rates in recent decades, but these two welfare states were differently equipped to mitigate the economic consequences of divorce for individual security in old age: Sweden followed a gender-equal policy approach to enable women and men to achieve economic autonomy, while West Germany, following the male-breadwinner model, introduced the system of ‘divorce-splitting’ to account for differences in women's and men's income. Against this background, this study uses large-scale register data from the German Public Pension Fund and the Swedish population registers to examine how divorce is related to the monthly public old-age pension income of women and men. The main comparison groups are divorced and (re)married individuals who entered retirement between 2013 and 2018. We descriptively show annual income histories from ages 20 to 65, and calculate monthly public old-age pension income with respect to lifetime income and pension regulations, such as the supplements/deductions for ‘divorce-splitting’. Multiple ordinary least square regression models further examine how family status relates to monthly public old-age pension income by gender. The results reveal that women and men in Sweden experience similar working histories, although women's incomes are lower. This is also reflected in women still having lower pension incomes than men. However, divorced and married women show comparable pension incomes, while divorced men receive approximately 26 per cent less pension income than married men. In West Germany, divorced women have significantly higher pension incomes than married women. The system of ‘divorce-splitting’ increases women's and decreases men's pension incomes, which seems to equalise their pension incomes. However, both stay below a married man's pension income. The findings indicate economic inequality in public old-age pension income by family status in Sweden and West Germany.

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 COVID-19 pandemic in Australia has profoundly affected older adults, particularly in the state of Victoria, which experienced strict lockdown restrictions six times since the pandemic began in 2020; totalling 245 days over three years. This study explored the experiences of older adults living in retirement villages during the first three lockdowns in Victoria from March 2020 to February 2021. We draw on the concept of the ‘third age’ to explore how residents’ post-retirement social and lifestyle aspirations were disrupted by the pandemic and associated lockdowns. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 14 residents during January and February 2021. All data were analysed using thematic mapping. Five key themes were identified: (1) benefits and frustrations of retirement village living during a pandemic; (2) the loss of amenities and activities; (3) heightened loneliness and social isolation; (4) reaching out to others; and (5) variable experiences of operators’ response. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted short-term and long-term issues around social isolation and the management of retirement villages, it has also demonstrated the resilience of residents and the strength of community ties and relationships. Retirement villages are promoted as age-friendly environments that enable an active and healthy post-retirement lifestyle. Yet our findings reveal heterogeneity within village populations. When services closed during lockdowns, this revealed a tension between the policy assumption that retirement villages are a housing consumption choice, and the unmet needs of those residents who depend on village services for day-to-day functioning.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the media provided daily coverage of this unprecedented crisis in the history of the 21st century. Some topics, such as how the virus affected older adults, were widely covered. The way in which COVID-19 was documented evoked a ‘tragedy’ narrative through consistent reporting about the suffering it was causing and the deleterious consequences it had on specific populations, including residents of long-term care homes (LTC). This article explores how reports on COVID-19 in LTC homes in a national newspaper (The Globe and Mail) fuelled a tragedy discourse that modulated the value of life of older adults living in those environments. We used critical discourse analysis and analysed 74 articles focusing on older persons residing in LTC homes in two Canadian provinces (Quebec and Ontario) during COVID-19. This article offers a brief overview of the notion of tragedy and how the discourse of tragedy is intertwined with humanitarian crises, life and death, and the value of life. Our findings revealed the construction of three types of tragedies that shape our societal values around life and death in LTC: the tragedy of the threat to life, the tragedy of the unfortunate (old, vulnerable and lacking in agency) and, finally, the tragedy of historical neglect and abandonment. Our findings suggest that the nature of reporting on life and death in LTC homes during the COVID-19 pandemic provoked a sense of fear and pity for a passive other. Re-thinking what gets reported in the media, including whose voice is represented/missing and how tragedy narratives are balanced with contesting stories, could elicit more sentiments of solidarity and action rather than reinforce pity, distancing and immobilisation.

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.

Understanding how to improve the physical and cognitive accessibility of visitor economy businesses and organisations wanting to offer nature-based outdoor pursuits for people with dementia is key to supporting their inclusion and agency. The aim of this qualitative study was to understand the experiences, needs and preferences of people with dementia participating in nature-based outdoor pursuits in their leisure time. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 people with dementia and 15 family members and subjected to thematic analysis. Four themes related to inclusion for people with dementia and their family members reflected diversity in individual needs and preferences for engaging with nature-based outdoor pursuits, their own adaptations to maintain access including accommodating risk, how cognitive and physical accessibility can be supported by businesses, and which practical and psychosocial barriers prevent inclusion. Learning from people with dementia and their family members has helped bridge the gap to their inclusion in nature-based outdoor pursuits. Their insights will inform the development of such pursuits by businesses and organisations as well as future work into risk decision-making.

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.

To date, support for independence in older people has been largely focused on achieving practice- and policy-orientated goals such as maintenance of function, remaining in one's own home and reducing the impact of receiving care. Uncertainty about what independence means to older people means that these goals may not align with what matters and should be considered for a more person-centred approach to independence. This study aimed to improve understanding of the meaning and facilitators of independence from older people's perspectives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 community-dwelling people aged 75+, purposively sampled for maximum variance in demographic characteristics. Interviews, conducted by phone or online, were recorded and transcribed. Analysis was conducted using a framework approach to organise, and facilitate comparison of, inductively and deductively generated codes. Patterns were identified and interpreted into themes. Transcripts and themes were reviewed with the research team. Disagreements in interpretations were resolved through discussion. Two themes were identified. The first theme, ‘Older people draw on personal values and experiences to develop unique interpretations of independence’, was underpinned by three concepts: participation, autonomy and control. The concepts reflected patterns identified within participants’ meanings of independence. The second theme, ‘It's not what you have, but how you think about it that creates independence’, represented participants’ shared prioritisation of psychological attributes over physical or environmental resources for maintaining independence. Participation, autonomy and control are shared concepts within older people's diverse interpretations of independence. This paper addresses uncertainty around what independence means to older people and contributes three key concepts that should be considered when operationalising person-centred support for independence.

A narrative of decline dominates the ageing process in the Global North. At the same time, older people have shared more positive stories of ageing, particularly with respect to their leisure practices. I explore this tension by drawing on an interview-based study with people playing walking football in the United Kingdom. My contention is that older people express multiple meanings of ageing that disturb deficit-focused cultural scripts of later-life, albeit in ways that can be fraught with tensions and contradictions. First, I explore how older people cultivate an alternate identity departing from assumptions of loneliness and degradation, with walking football providing an opportunity to develop friendships and a sense of belonging. Second, older people emphasise their own (good) health and the embodied demands of walking football, yet in doing so, can reinforce ageist discourses by distinguishing themselves from the inactive and isolated (older) other. Third, older people reflect on their current and future involvement in walking football in positive ways. However, through attending to the temporal character of their experiences, I show how, whilst older people express a desire to continue participation, this is threatened by the realities of their ageing bodies in ways that align with deficit framings of later-life. I conclude by calling for recognising the multiplicity of older people’s experiences and exercising caution about reproducing over-simplistic and sweeping celebrations of 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.

While health inequalities among older people have long been a research focus and are now high on policy agendas in developed societies, they have often been neglected in less developed ones, despite them experiencing rapid population ageing since the turn of the century. Using data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) cohort study (N = 63,578), this paper measures the health status of older people using the Quality of Well-Being scale, and estimates time trends in health inequality with concentration indices, followed by an investigation of their social determinants. Its specific focus is health care accessibility (HA) in the period 2005–2018, when China experienced an unprecedented advance in health-related social policy reform. The analysis reveals pro-rich inequalities in health among older people, but also shows that these have narrowed gradually over the past two decades, which is largely attributable to greater equity in access to health care. Within this general trend of inequality reduction, however, the role of HA has declined and social determinants such as education now have an increasing influence on health inequalities. These findings suggest that social policies targeting not only health improvements among older people but also health inequalities earlier in the life course are required if policy makers want to promote health equity in later life.

Using data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this research investigates how post-retirement employment influences older people’s expenditure in urban China. By broadening the understanding of post-retirement employment behaviour from a consumer welfare perspective, this study expands the literature on retirement consumption and provides theoretical explanations, empirical insights and policy recommendations. The findings reveal that post-retirement employment behaviour reduces urban retirees’ household expenditure and has a more significant effect on men than on women, but this effect diminishes as consumption levels rise. Increasing income, promoting social participation and improving subjective health outcomes are all potential channels through which post-retirement employment can affect consumption. Further analysis shows two main reasons why post-retirement employment reduces older people’s expenditure: first, the increase in subjective health levels resulting from post-retirement employment reduces healthcare expenditure; second, post-retirement employment does not promote social participation and self-rated health for all consumption levels and all genders of retirees – it also decreases expenditure. Preliminary evidence suggests that internet use positively moderates the negative impact of post-retirement employment on older people’s expenditure. These findings provide policy implications for retirement policies and the promotion of the silver economy.

The unstable employment trajectories and low wages of Chilean workers mean that the amount of savings accrued in pension funds are often insufficient to cope with the high costs of living in the country, compelling many older adults to remain in the labour market. Although financial need seems to be an important reason for post-retirement work in Chile, a national survey revealed that a majority of older workers would like to remain employed even if there were no economic need. Hence, this research aims at exploring the intrinsic work motivation of older Chilean adults beyond retirement age. This qualitative study is the second phase of mixed-methods research to analyse the factors influencing post-retirement work in Chile. A total of 32 in-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with older workers in the formal labour market who were legally entitled to retire but continued being economically active in Santiago, Chile. The data are analysed using thematic analysis. We identify three main emerging themes, namely the meaning that work gives to life, future projects and post-retirement orientations, and work as the primary source of social interaction. The findings of this study provide valuable insight into intrinsic work motivation, highlighting important gender and occupational differences. It makes a significant contribution not only to the literature but also potentially to national policy makers as well as employers, indicating the need to adjust the labour market to the ageing workforce.

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.

The agency of a person with young onset dementia (YOD) changes owing to individual symptoms, uncertainty about the speed of progression and the severity of YOD. Dementia usually greatly interrupts life and reduces agency. Previous studies show that some people and families integrate and cope with dementia better than others. This study aimed to find out how YOD changes the agency of the person who has it and what family members’ role is in forming their agency. The data were collected in Finland in semi-structured interviews with 14 people with YOD and 15 family members, about a year after the diagnosis. These two data sets were analysed with a narrative method, actantial analysis. A wide variety of elements, both human and non-human factors, were found to promote and undermine agency. It was found that people with YOD need both integrity and flexibility to reconstruct their own agency. Resources support them in this process of reconstruction, and hinderers interrupt the process. This combination of integrity and flexibility, resources and hinderers, generates how people with YOD recount the future, the aims they set and how they reconstruct their agency. Other people, especially family members, are part of this dynamic process and when their relationship is cohesive, the agency of both parties increases. The participants used ideal and burdensome storylines to narrate factors that supported or interrupted their agency. Based on our findings, narrating one’s situation is, for coping, not only a means but its very basis.