Search

Health authorities worldwide address older adults as a risk group for more serious illness and health complications associated with COVID-19, while social gerontologists have warned that addressing older adults as a risk group of COVID-19 bears the risk of reinforcing ageism. This paper empirically explores to what extent older adults perceive themselves as part of a COVID-19 risk group and how these perceptions influence their everyday lives and experiences of age and ageing. This paper draws upon data from a mixed-methods study on older adults' risk perceptions during COVID-19 in Lower Austria, including a representative survey on 521 adults (60+ years) and data from 20 semi-structured interviews. Approximately two-thirds of the respondents consider themselves at risk of COVID-19 and name age, in addition to pre-existing illness, as a contributing factor in this risk perception. Older adults with health constraints, and especially older men, have a higher probability of perceiving risk due to COVID-19. Additionally, older adults report that they experience being 'suddenly seen as old' or 'being put into a box' during the pandemic, which influenced their experiences and images of ageing. Our study provides insights into how perceived COVID-19 risk affects the everyday lives of older adults. Age-based categorisations of risk contribute to a shift in images of age and ageing, drawing on insecurity and risk, rather than successful and active ageing, to conceptualise later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older people have increasingly been using the new information and communication technologies (ICTs), namely the internet. Seeking to contribute with substantive information on their digital inclusion, this paper focuses on the adoption and use of ICTs by older adults, highlighting their experiences and considering their plurality. Taking a qualitative approach, the core goal of the empirical research underlying this paper was to understand what mechanisms and modalities configure the relationship of older internet users with the new ICTs. With that objective in mind, interviews were conducted with 20 internet users over the age of 60. Those interviews, which included a biographical element, were subjected to multi-categorical analysis. Results suggest a typology of modes of relating to the new ICTs among older internet users that reflects different trajectories, practices, skills, significances and impacts. The analysis shows how life trajectories and differentiated uses are reflected in equally differentiated impacts for older adults, contributing to their quality of life in different ways and to different degrees. Digital skills play a fundamental role in enhancing or limiting those effects. The results of this research help break down the stereotypes associated with the older generations and may have relevant implications for the design of digital inclusion policies and initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marketisation of European home care has given rise to significant private for-profit providers growth. However, little research has focused directly on commercial companies to examine the mechanisms through which they emerge, grow and shape long-term care policy – this is this paper's task. Drawing on the literature on business power, the recent concept of "institutional business power" is introduced, defined as the power flowing from the entrenched position of business actors in the provision of public social services. The paper identifies the mechanisms through which private providers have grown and assesses the extent of their institutional power by examining their influence on policy and the support they obtain from relevant home care stakeholders. The limits of providers' institutional power are also discussed. The paper relies on semi-structured interviews with representatives of public, private and non-profit home care providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paperwork has always been a central part of bureaucratic work. Over the last few years, bureaucratic procedures have become increasingly standardised and digitalised. Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork within welfare offices in Switzerland and Belgium, we reflect on the way evidence is constructed within social policy and cases built for or against noncitizen welfare recipients in order to show how paper truths are established and challenged. The focus on digital practices within public policy implementation highlights how it contributes to enhanced control mechanisms on the implementation level and how migration law continues to guide welfare governance for noncitizens. This allows targeting of the most marginalised groups, whose rights to access state support are institutionally impeded. Through database information flows, official forms, paper reports and face-to-face meetings, we further show how a hybrid form of bureaucratic work emerges, where direct contact with the client is still key, yet highly influenced by standardisation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discourse of deservingness has been mobilised against certain groups in the UK society navigating UK labour markets, among them refugees and asylum seekers. These discourses, leading to the stigmatisation of the unemployed are coupled with an emphasis on the importance of individuals taking responsibility to develop their 'employability'. Little attention has been paid to scrutinise the contrast between the deservingness rhetoric and policy making with the actual conditions newcomers, and in particular refugees and asylum seekers, are confronted with when seeking employment. Our paper fills such a gap by indicating key contradictions at the heart of labour market integration in the UK. On the one hand, the emphasis on deservingness is coupled with policy discourses that construct an environment shaped by welfare and labour market chauvinism. On the other hand, the policy architecture is fundamentally flawed in a number of ways in terms of the support mechanisms necessary to ensure that newcomers can successfully integrate into the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of COVID-19 has had a significant impact on societies and individual lives across the globe. In this paper, we address the impact of the pandemic and the protective measures on empirical social scientific ageing research through the lens of 'ethically important moments'. One of the most crucial measures for preventing the spread of the virus includes social distancing; therefore, empirical research methods based on person-to-person direct contact (as in interviews) and first-hand observation have been scaled back since 2020. For ageing research, the challenges are particularly pronounced due to the ongoing discussion regarding vulnerabilities associated with higher age and age-based discrimination. Hence, many researchers focusing on ageing are facing some difficult questions: How and under what conditions can we carry on with empirical research without putting our research participants and ourselves at risk? Firstly, we systematically identify the key dimensions and challenges that have shaped social scientific research during the lockdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic: fragmentation, fluidity, ambiguity and uncertainty. Then, using insights from two international research projects, we illustrate and critically reflect on the ethically important moments and practical dilemmas that have resulted from these pandemic challenges when researching with and about older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of older self-funders in England is growing in the context of tight eligibility criteria and fixed financial thresholds to access statutory adult social care. Older people who self-fund their social care fall largely under the radar of statutory services and of research. Our study aimed to listen closely to the stories that older people tell about finding, managing and paying for their care. We interviewed 65 older people living in the community who were funding all or some of their social care. This paper focuses on narrative analysis of selected transcripts from these interviews. It sheds light on how older people represent their experiences of self-funding and what underpins these constructions. A key finding is that the disjunctions within older people's accounts between the care they want and the care they receive reflect wider political and structural tensions in the funding and delivery of care. Older self-funders temper their expectations in light of their experience of shortfalls in the system. This enables them to adjust to the deficiencies but obscures and perpetuates poor care. The discussion considers the findings in relation to: the fundamental incompatability of body labour and commodified care; the shared precarity of older people and care workers; and the individualisation of risks that makes older people and their carers responsible for making a failing care system 'work'. Our analysis adds to the case for major reform of adult social care, including a revaluing of the status and employment conditions of front-line care workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the experiences of informal family care-giving for persons with ADRD in the context of Arab and Muslim communities. This paper offers fresh insight into the less-studied private sphere of the home, showing how families respond to the onset and long-term care of persons with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). It considers the extent to which sociocultural and religious influences are appropriated by family care-givers as coping mechanisms and motivators for care. Drawing upon interviews with 32 family care-givers for older persons living with ADRD in Qatar, findings reveal the intersectionality of the care-giving experience with various sociocultural, religious and emotional influences through seven emergent themes: (a) reasons and motivations for care-giving; (b) role of the extended family; (c) socio-demographic attributes of care-givers, their allocated responsibilities and how these intersect; (d) socio-religious attitudes towards care-giving of older persons; (e) social stigma; (f) personal knowledge of ADRD; and (g) coping mechanisms. The paper is concluded with key implications of these sociocultural insights for theory, policy and practice, which could inform Qatar's health and social care provision sector as well as other Arab and Muslim communities that share similar cultural and religious belief systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Independent mobility is an important component of healthy ageing. Public transit may be an affordable way to achieve independent mobility, and yet little is known about older adults' transition to public transit. This paper addresses this research gap by providing an exploration of older adults' experiences transitioning to public transit use, and by comparing these experiences to those of older people who have always travelled using transit. Twenty-four older adults (65+) living in Hamilton, Canada, who use public transit completed semi-structured interviews during which they discussed their experiences when they first began to use transit. These experiences are framed herein with the concept self-efficacy, i.e. how one's belief in their ability to complete a task shapes their ability to complete said task. Results indicate that most older adults acquire skills to transition to public transit, such as trip planning, boarding, knowing where to sit and exiting the bus. These skills are developed through practice. As one gains experience, one becomes more confident in their ability to meet their daily travel needs using transit. Therefore, the transition to public transit as an older adult can be more challenging for those with little experience using public transit. This paper highlights the danger of assuming all older adults will effortlessly take up transit and stresses the importance of older adults gaining experience using public transit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social care to assist with the activities of daily living is a necessity for many older people; while informal care provided by family members can be a first step to meeting care needs, formal care provided by professionals is often needed or preferred by older people and their families. In England, the number of older people paying for formal care is set to rise, driven by an ageing population and the limited resources of local authorities. Little is known about how older people and their families experience the potentially disruptive processes of deciding upon, searching for and implementing such care, including the financial implications. This paper explores accounts of seeking self-funded social care in England, told by older people and their families in 39 qualitative interviews. These accounts, which we call 'care chronicles', include stories about the emergence of care needs and informal care-giving, the search for formal care, including interacting with new systems and agencies, and getting formal (paid) care, either as the recipient or an involved family member. Stories are analysed through the lens of biographical disruption, and analysis demonstrates that such disruptions can occur for older people and their families across the entirety of the care chronicle. Needing, seeking and getting care all have the potential to cause practical and symbolic disruptions; moreover, these disruptions can be cumulative and cyclical, as attempts to resolve or minimise one disruption can lead to new ones. While the concept of biographical disruption is a mainstay in medical sociology, it is less frequently applied to issues relating to social care, and most often takes embodiment as a key focus. This study is novel in its application of the concept to experiences of seeking self-funded care, and in its introduction of the concept of 'care chronicles', which invite a longer and broader view of biographical disruptions in the lives of older people with care needs and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inter- and intragenerational relationships are known to be important in maintaining the wellbeing of older people. A key aspect of these relationships is the exchange of both emotional and instrumental social support. However, relatively little is known about how this exchange of support changes in the context of widespread disruption. The COVID-19 pandemic provides an opportunity to examine how older people's family relationships are impacted by such social change. The present qualitative study explores how older people in the United Kingdom experienced changes in inter- and intragenerational support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants (N = 33) were recruited through a large-scale nationally representative survey (https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/psychology-consortium-covid19). We asked how life had been pre-pandemic, how they experienced the first national lockdown and what the future might hold in store. The data were analysed using constructivist grounded theory. This paper focuses on the importance of family relationships and how they changed as a consequence of the pandemic. We found that the family support system had been interrupted, that there were changes in the methods of support and that feelings of belonging were challenged. We argue that families were brought into disequilibrium through changes in the exchange of inter- and intragenerational support. The important role of grandchildren for older adults was striking and challenged by the pandemic. The significance of social connectedness and support within the family had not changed during the pandemic, but it could no longer be lived in the same way. The desire to be close to family members and to support them conflicted with the risk of pandemic infection. Our study found support for the COVID-19 Social Connectivity Paradox: the need for social connectedness whilst maintaining social distance. This challenged family equilibrium, wellbeing and quality of life in older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical legal partnerships address individual legal needs that can create impediments to health. Little is known about outcomes from medical legal partnerships and their relationship to access to justice. This paper reports outcomes from one medical legal partnership from the perspective of the client, with specific emphasis on impact on health and concepts related to access to justice. We suggest a conceptual model for incorporating medical legal partnerships into a broader framework about access to justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South-East Asian refugees have lived in the United States of America for nearly four decades, with early refugee immigrants experiencing ageing and later life within the refugee context. As refugees age, health concerns of this older population grow, highlighting the need for ongoing assessment of refugee health and health-seeking behaviours. This study builds on previous literature that assessed the health and health-seeking patterns of South-East Asian refugees in the early years following resettlement, exploring how health and health-seeking is understood among older refugees 40 years after immigration. This paper includes a subset of 37 older refugees from a larger, community-based participatory, mixed-methods intergenerational study of Cambodian and Laotian refugee families conducted over four years (quantitative N = 433; qualitative N = 183). Thematic analysis of 34 semi-structured interviews with these older refugees in coastal Alabama revealed trends in health and health-seeking practices. Older refugees reported high rates of diabetes and hypertension within their generational cohort, and indicated a shift in health-seeking behaviours, whereby Western biomedicine is sought first for such chronic concerns, followed by traditional medicines for mild ailments such as headaches or colds. Older refugees underscored barriers of language, finances and transportation as limiting access to Western health care. Implications for engaging in community health practices and incorporating services to specifically meet the needs of the ageing refugee population are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contribute to the knowledge about open, co-produced meeting centres for people with dementia, from their own perspective. Services that support people who are newly diagnosed with dementia are often insufficient. Co-produced services have the potential to address the need of people with dementia to be useful and productive, while reducing the stigma. In this study, we applied a qualitative design. Data were collected at a meeting centre for people with newly diagnosed dementia, and consisted of fieldwork (13 days for about two hours at a time), written materials, and semi-structured interviews (mean length 30 minutes) with five attendees with dementia and two staff persons. The analysis was inspired by situational analysis. The findings showed that the meeting centre provided a place for human encounters, a break from everyday life, and a place to share knowledge and develop new skills. Further, challenges were described. Co-production consisted of the attendees being encouraged to take part in the planning of activities, learning from each other and providing mutual support. The study adds to previous knowledge about co-produced services for people with dementia. Future studies can clarify how co-production can be developed in services for people with newly diagnosed dementia in countries and regions where there is a dearth of this kind of support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of dependent older people in England, as elsewhere, is projected to rise substantially, while the number of unpaid carers is not projected to rise by an equivalent amount. Barriers to people caring for older relatives have been theorised, however, there is a lack of understanding of attitudes to providing care in the future among people who are not currently carers. This paper presents qualitative analysis of interviews with 20 people in middle age about their willingness to care for older relatives in the future. Interviewees were asked their general views about who should provide care, then to consider future scenarios in which a close relative developed care needs. Willingness to care was influenced by beliefs about reciprocity, love and identity, beliefs about who was likely to provide the best quality and most appropriate care, and beliefs about how difficult caring would be. Older relatives' care preferences were a key consideration. While some interviewees felt the best care would always be provided by family, others considered that professional skills were needed. Interviewees saw important roles for easily accessible information and advice, sharing care, including respite care, and financial support, in making it easier to provide care. The COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown had highlighted relevant issues for interviewees, which are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]