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The recent Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety in Australia has documented systemic failures and shocking incidences of abuse and neglect, a not uncommon story internationally. As aged care in many countries is predominantly publicly funded, it is important to understand the general public's attitudes towards aged care quality, what aspects of care quality they think are most important and their willingness to contribute to increased funding to the sector. This paper asks specifically whether self-reported aged care literacy impacts expectations and willingness to pay. More than 10,000 members of the general population were surveyed stratified by age, gender and state. Regardless of the level of aged care literacy, there was consensus about what constitutes quality care, and care priorities for the sector. However, aged care literacy affected willingness to pay to fund a better-quality aged care system. The current crisis facing Australia's aged care system and that of many other countries internationally demonstrates the central importance of general public support to drive quality improvements, recognising that increasing public expenditure on aged care is a necessary part of the solution. This study provides important baseline data from which to commence national and international conversations to consider all options for ensuring the quality, safety and sustainability of aged care now and into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More people are working into older age, raising questions about how many hours they can work before their health becomes compromised. This paper models work-hour tipping points for mental health and vitality among older Australian workers aged 50–70 years. We use longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, 2005–2016 (about 44,900 observations), and bootstrapping Three Stage Least Squares (3SLS) estimation techniques to adjust for reverse and reciprocal relationships between wages, work hours and health. Our approach corrects for heteroscedasticity in the system equation error terms, and we estimate models on the relatively healthy older adults who have remained employed into older age. Among these older workers we observe weekly thresholds of 39–40 hours beyond which mental health and vitality decline. This average, however, hides variability in work-hour limits linked to overall health and occupation. Thus, weekly tipping points for blue- and pink-collar jobs are 7–9 hours lower compared to white-collar jobs, and even wider gaps (11 hours) are apparent for workers with poorer physical functioning, which becomes common as people age. Our modelling reveals that age is not the biggest limiting factor for how many hours older adults can work, rather their health and the types of jobs are critical, and likely widen the gap in who ages successfully or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the personal meaning and importance of music in the lives of older people, paying particular attention to the ways in which music contributes to self-identity and the quality of life. The data derive from qualitative interviews with a sample of older Australians aged 65 years and over who live in rural and urban settings. The findings reveal that music provides people with ways of understanding and developing their self-identity, of connecting with other people, of maintaining wellbeing and of experiencing and expressing spirituality, and that it provides strong associations with and memories of a person's life. Specifically, the results show how music is used as a source of entertainment as well as a forum to share and interact with others. Music was described as a personal experience to which people assigned meaning and emotions. The informants also described how music allowed them to engage in imaginative play and to escape from some of the hardships experienced in later life. The results reveal that music promotes quality of life by contributing to positive self-esteem, by helping people feel competent and independent, and by lessening feelings of isolation and loneliness. The paper argues that music can be used to maintain and promote a better quality of life for older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study sought to explore qualitatively experiences of existential loneliness (EL) in 80 older people living in retirement communities across the United Kingdom and Australia. Qualitative semi-structured interviews permitted in-depth exploration of issues such as biographical narrative, close relationships, loss, feelings of loneliness and retirement living. It was our intention to conduct a large-scale, deep-listening exercise that would provide further clues about EL in older people and the circumstances that give rise to such feelings. Data provided rich insight into older people's inner lives. Core themes identified loss of close attachments, lack of physical touch and intimacy, deterioration of health and body, and lack of an emotional language through which to express EL as central to older people's experiences. Furthermore, there was a suggestion that the move to retirement living was for many people inextricably connected to their experience of EL. Our data further support and extend the notion that EL can be thought of as a gradual sense of separation from the world and that ageing intensifies a myriad of social, emotional and physical circumstances that prompt its emergence. This sense of existential isolation need not be thought of as exclusive to those experiencing extreme frailty or who face death imminently – our data pointed to a clear and gradual emergence of EL throughout later life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]