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.

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.

For older adults requiring permanent care in nursing homes (or residential aged care facilities), there can be a tendency to feel disconnected from their sense of self. Digital storytelling has the potential to improve relationships and social connectedness, and encourage a sense of self and identity; however, there is little research on the implementation of this practice. A qualitative process evaluation was conducted with a sample of 12 volunteers who delivered a Digital Stories programme. The programme connected volunteers with socially isolated residents of nursing homes with the aim of engaging the residents to reminisce and contribute toward creating a digital story about their lives. The study aimed to understand enablers of and barriers to implementing the programme in nursing homes, from the perspective of volunteers. Thematic analysis resulted in several overarching themes and sub-themes. The enablers of implementation included skills and characteristics of the volunteers (e.g. adaptable to residents’ needs), specific features of the programme (e.g. having a shared goal) and support from the nursing home staff. The barriers to implementation included individual traits of the resident (e.g. low capacity for engagement), limitations associated with the prescribed protocol, and managing perspectives regarding what stories are told. Volunteers also made suggestions for future programme development. Implications for successful future digital storytelling projects include ensuring a manualised approach to the program while allowing for flexibility in delivery, careful recruitment of residents and volunteers, and providing comprehensive training and education to volunteers.

Grandparents are increasingly participating in international migration to resettle with or visit adult children and grandchildren living overseas. In doing so, they make important social, cultural, emotional and financial contributions to transnational families, in particular through providing unpaid childcare and domestic work. This scoping review aims to examine the extent, range and nature of studies on transnational grandparent migration and care-giving to provide an overview of existing research. The review was conducted in August 2022, following Arksey and O’Malley’s scoping review methodology. Of 2,099 sources identified using nine databases, supplemented with manual searching (including grey literature), 65 (qualitative, quantitative and mixed-methods) studies conducted between 2000 and 2022 were deemed relevant for inclusion. A descriptive analysis of study characteristics details the author(s), the (year) and the type of publication; the study population and sample size; the research objectives; the research methods; and the sending and receiving places. A thematic analysis of these studies identified key themes, including study characteristics, typologies of transnational migrant grandparents, their family roles and contributions, the uses of information and communication technologies in supporting migrant grandparents’ transnational lives, benefits gained from migration, challenges faced and strategies employed in response. The article concludes that grandparents make significant contributions to transnational families and host economies, but their roles and challenges are overlooked in national and transnational (supra-national) policies. Future research should explore the ethics of migration programmes aimed towards migrant grandparents as well as effective measures to assist grandparents to age well in transnational mobility.

As the population of Aotearoa New Zealand ages, informal family carers will play an increasingly important role in caring for older adults at home. Multi-generational living arrangements are a growing trend, particularly among Māori communities, where caring for older relatives within the family home is widespread. This article uses in-depth, semi-structured interviews with Māori whānau (extended family members) caring for kaumātua (older family members) at home to explore how carers experienced care coordination in the broader care collective. The findings centred on three interconnected factors that described the collective organisation of care: (1) whānau care as normal; (2) whānau care as collective coordination; and (3) whānau carer knowledge and needs as unseen. The findings show that although whānau care of kaumātua is highly valued, ‘structural holes’ within care systems contribute to challenges in care coordination. Despite extensive whānau support for kaumātua, primary carers often felt that their knowledge, preferences and self-care needs remained unseen and not translatable to those outside the everyday care situation. Rather than assuming an artificial binary difference between ‘collective’ and ‘individually oriented’ care contexts and cultures, analysing the cultural norms surrounding whānau care-giving confirms that collective care system members face similar and different challenges to carers with smaller caring capacities.

Rapid demographic changes and heavy reliance on informal care pose significant challenges to meeting long-term care (LTC) needs in China. Understanding changes in unmet LTC needs across different times and places can inform future LTC system planning and care resource allocation, identifying emerging care needs and services gaps in different regions. Drawing on data from 6,030 urban and 5,070 rural residents in the Chinese Longitudinal Health Longevity Survey 2005–2017/18, this study investigates variations in unmet LTC needs across different age groups, periods and birth cohorts among Chinese older adults and their place-based rural–urban differences. We applied the age-period-cohort interaction model to disentangle the three temporal processes, and found that, overall, rural older adults experienced higher risk of unmet LTC needs and had larger variation in age effects, yet the age, period and cohort effects on unmet needs among rural older people differed from their urban counterparts. Although ‘younger’ older adults (aged below 85) had fewer care needs than older adults, they had a higher risk of experiencing unmet needs. The risk of having unmet needs did not change significantly over the 12 years, though unmet LTC needs were more pronounced among more-recent cohorts than previous generations, especially in urban areas. The findings contribute to the social gerontology debate regarding changing patterns in unmet LTC needs, and provide crucial policy insights, underscoring the necessity of targeted interventions to address ‘younger’ older adults’ care needs and increased investmed in the formal LTC system to tackle the escalating care gap.

The ability and knowledge to manage financial tasks may be compromised in old age, especially when the need to navigate the care and social benefit systems increases. Managing financial tasks may consist of a variety of actions of both the older people themselves and their representatives, often family members. This study explored how financial tasks related to the care and everyday life of older people who need long-term care are managed by using the ideas of modalities of agency and distributed agency. We analysed interviews of 19 older persons and their family members with a qualitative case analysis. All the older persons who participated in the study distributed the agency in financial tasks among their family members, but to different levels and for different reasons. We identified three types of distributed agency – inevitable, assimilated and minimal distributed agency – in which the older persons’ knowledge about financial tasks and their ability to manage financial tasks differed. Within these types, the cases differed in terms of the know-how of the family members and the reasons why the older people’s knowledge about financial tasks or their ability to manage their financial tasks were diminished. We conclude that older persons with long-term care needs require help in regard to financial tasks, and the older people’s and their family members’ ability to manage financial tasks could be enhanced by making the benefit systems and online banking more user-friendly and by improving the help from care staff.

Frailty is a common but complex phenomenon that is approached from theoretical and professional perspectives but rarely from the perspectives of older people and their essential stakeholders. Different or opposing perspectives on frailty at personal, organisational, and community levels can negatively affect care for frail older people. This systematic integrative review synthesises the perspectives on frailty of older people, health/social care professionals, informal caregivers, managers and policymakers, using thematic analysis. We use the Joanna Briggs Institute–Critical Appraisal Checklist to appraise the quality of 52 qualitative and mixed-method studies drawn from the PubMed/MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, and Web of Science databases (inception–December 2023). Of these, 33 include the perspectives of older people, 27 of health/social care professionals, four of managers, and six of informal caregivers. Structuring the perspectives along six themes – ‘the multi-dimensional nature of frailty’, ‘the dynamics of frailty’, ‘the complexity of frailty’, ‘frailty in relation to age’, ‘frailty in relation to health’ and ‘frailty in relation to dependence’ – revealed substantive similarities in the conceptualisation of frailty between older people and professionals, e.g. regarding frailty’s dynamic and multi-dimensional nature. However, older people and professionals differ in their interpretations of frailty: older people take a personal view, while professionals take a more practical view. The identified discrepancies in perspectives may affect care relationships and care for frail older people. Therefore, we advocate a systems approach that incorporates multiple perspectives to form a comprehensive view of frailty and allows for a situation-specific shared understanding of frailty in older people.

Considering the demographic shift towards an ageing population, the financial threats that arise after retirement and the ongoing debates about extending working life, it is crucial to thoroughly understand the impact of retirement on the health of older individuals. This article presents a systematic review conducted according to the standards established by PRISMA statement CINAHL and APA PsycArticles databases by EBSCOhost, Pubmed, Scopus and Web of Science, for longitudinal studies published between 2013 and 2023. The aim of the review was to synthesise evidence of the effects of retirement on health, for example physical functioning, morbidity or mortality. From 1,757 records, 19 papers were included. Twelve longitudinal studies consistently linked retirement to declining physical function, increased disease prevalence and higher all-cause mortality risk. The evidence did not show a clear conclusion on biomarkers as health outcomes. The article identifies five explanatory mechanisms behind the retirement–health relationship: working conditions, retirement types, financial security, lifestyle changes and social participation. Retirement can have some adverse effects on health; however, the health consequences of withdrawal are likely to vary by pre-retirement factors. These findings carry implications for the current debate of extending working life and the social security system for older people.