This paper investigates the association between accumulated major lifecourse adversities and later-life depressive symptoms among older people in England, both at a single point in time (prevalence) and the onset over time during later life (incidence), using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Using retrospective data on the experience of major life adversities from childhood onwards, five latent classes were identified: no/few lifecourse adversities (58.6%), lost relationship (27.0%), chained adversities (2.4%), childhood adversities (6.3%) and war-related adversities (5.7%). Older people who had experienced ‘chained adversities’, ‘childhood adversities’ and ‘a lost relationship’ had higher odds of presenting current depressive symptoms in 2006, even after controlling for socio-demographic characteristics, health-risk behaviours and social resources. Longitudinal analysis indicated that amongst respondents who were clear of depression in 2006, those older people who had experienced childhood adversities, a lost relationship and war-related adversities experienced a higher risk of having a new case of depressive symptoms. Results further indicate that women's mental health in later life is more sensitive to earlier life adversities than men's. The study shows that intervention earlier in the lifecourse may have benefits for the individual both contemporaneously and over the longer term.

The paper focuses on temporal aspects of informal caring for older people. Limitations of large-scale surveys in capturing such data are noted and time-use methodology, despite its own limitations, is proposed as a promising alternative. Adopting a critical perspective on time that includes carers’ own conceptualisations, we report the findings of a qualitative study of carers’ time use. Sixty-two interviews with carers, male/female, co-resident/not co-resident, employed/not employed, and located across Great Britain were conducted. Analysis considered people's own diverse and ambiguous views of their care activities. Carers’ accounts of their time revealed non-linear experiences and a sense of being permanently on call. Interviewees often travelled distances to engage in support activities with or for older people. Changes over time were pervasive, increasing or reducing care requirements. Unanticipated events could precipitate radical changes in time use. Managing time, exercising temporal agency, was particularly apparent in accounts of care, employment, other family responsibilities and choices about friendship. Measurement of carers’ time use which draws on the conceptual foundation of carers’ own perspectives on time may provide more effective quantitative understanding of the temporal aspects of caring. It should not pre-define time, must grasp a variety of tasks, take account of intermittent activity, incorporate the 24–7 experience of many carers and demonstrate how caring time interacts with other time.

Understanding how social experiences throughout life shape later loneliness levels may help to identify how to alleviate loneliness at later lifestages. This study investigates the association between social relationship adversities throughout the lifecourse and loneliness in later life. Using prospective data from the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development (N = 2,453), we conducted multivariable analyses to investigate independent, cumulative and moderated effects between the number of social relationship adversities experienced in childhood, mid-adulthood and later adulthood and the feeling of loneliness at age 68. We examined interactions between social relationship adversities and current quantity and quality aspects of social relationships. We found evidence of a step-dose response where greater exposure to social relationship adversities experienced at three earlier lifestages predicted higher loneliness levels in later life with more recent social relationship adversities more strongly related to loneliness. The results also demonstrated support for exacerbation and amelioration of earlier adverse social relationship experiences by current social isolation and relationship quality, respectively. This study suggests that social relationship adversities experienced throughout the lifecourse continue to influence loneliness levels much later in life. A key finding is that adverse social relationship experiences in earlier life may explain why otherwise socially similar individuals differ in their levels of loneliness. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

With a large baby-boomer generation entering mid-later life in the United Kingdom, and families spanning across multiple generations, understanding how individuals support multiple generations is of increasing research and policy significance. Data from the British 1958 National Child Development Study, collected when respondents were aged 55, are used to examine how mid-life women and men allocate their time to support elderly parents/parents-in-law and their own adult children in terms of providing grandchild care, and whether there is a trade-off in caring for different generations. Binary logistic and multinomial regression models distinguish between individuals supporting multiple generations, only one generation or none. One-third of mid-life individuals are ‘sandwiched’ between multiple generations, by having at least one parent/parent-in-law and one grandchild alive. Among them, half are simultaneously supporting both generations. Caring for grandchildren increases the probability of also supporting one's parents/parents-in-law, and vice versa. More intense support for one generation is associated with a higher likelihood of supporting the other generation. Good health is associated with caring for multiple generations for men and women, while working part-time or not at all is associated with such care provision for women only. Facilitating mid-life men and women in responding to family support demands whilst maintaining paid employment will be critical in fostering future intergenerational support.

China has been undergoing dramatic socio-economic and demographic changes in the last few decades. The rapid growth of the ageing population will pose tremendous challenges to its public health and social welfare system. This study aims to examine how urbanisation has impacted cardiovascular disease (CVD) risks among middle-aged and older Chinese in two decades, from 1991 to 2011. Data were drawn from a nationwide longitudinal data-set of the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) (sweeps 1991, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009 and 2011). Participants aged ⩾45 years old were included. A dynamic urbanisation index was created for each community (village or neighbourhood) based on community-level data that can reveal the heterogeneity within and across places and capture dimensions of social, economic and physical characteristics of urban living over time and space. Multi-level modelling analyses (level 1: occasions; level 2: individuals; level 3: households; level 4: communities) were performed on outcomes of CVD risks such as body mass index, waist circumference, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure. The results show upward trends in all CVD risks for both genders over 20 years of urbanisation after adjustment for socio-economic and demographic confounders. Urbanisation in China is associated with absolute increases in CVD risks over time among its middle-aged and older people, despite its contribution to relative reduction of the rural–urban gap over time. This is particularly true for women from the least urbanised areas. It is relevant to inform policy-making processes to target the most vulnerable groups of older people in China during its rapid urbanisation process. There is a possibility for policy intervention to reduce inequality during the process of China's planned urbanisation.

The average expected lifespan in Canadian long-term care (LTC) homes is now less than two years post-admission, making LTC a palliative care setting. As little is known about the readiness of LTC staff in Canada to embrace a palliative care mandate, the main objective of this study was to assess qualities relevant to palliative care, including personal emotional wellbeing, palliative care self-efficacy and person-centred practices (e.g. knowing the person, comfort care). A convenience sample of 228 professional and non-professional staff (e.g. nurses and nursing assistants) across four Canadian LTC homes participated in a survey. Burnout, secondary traumatic stress and poor job satisfaction were well below accepted thresholds, e.g. burnout: mean = 20.49 (standard deviation (SD) = 5.39) for professionals; mean = 22.09 (SD = 4.98) for non-professionals; cut score = 42. Furthermore, only 0–1 per cent of each group showed a score above cut-off for any of these variables. Reported self-efficacy was moderate, e.g. efficacy in delivery: mean = 18.63 (SD = 6.29) for professionals; mean = 15.33 (SD = 7.52) for non-professionals; maximum = 32. The same was true of self-reported person-centred care, e.g. knowing the person; mean = 22.05 (SD = 6.55) for professionals; mean = 22.91 (SD = 6.16) for non-professionals; maximum = 35. t-Tests showed that non-professional staff reported relatively higher levels of burnout, while professional staff reported greater job satisfaction and self-efficacy (p < 0.05). There was no difference in secondary traumatic stress or person-centred care (p > 0.05). Overall, these results suggest that the emotional wellbeing of the Canadian LTC workforce is unlikely to impede effective palliative care. However, palliative care self-efficacy and person-centred care can be further cultivated in this context.

The impact that providing care to ageing parents has on adult children's lives may depend on the long-term care (LTC) context. A common approach to test this is to compare whether the impact of care-giving varies between countries with different LTC coverage. However, this approach leaves considerable room for omitted variable bias. We use individual fixed-effects analyses to reduce bias in the estimates of the effects of informal care-giving on quality of life, and combine this with a difference-in-difference approach to reduce bias in the estimated moderating impact of LTC coverage on these effects. We draw on longitudinal data for Sweden and Denmark from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) collected between 2004 and 2015. Both countries traditionally had generous LTC coverage, but cutbacks were implemented at the end of the 20th century in Sweden and more recently in Denmark. We use this country difference in the timing of the cutbacks to shed light on effects of LTC coverage on the impact care-giving has on quality of life. Our analyses show that care-giving was more detrimental for quality of life in Sweden than in Denmark, and this difference weakened significantly when LTC coverage was reduced in Denmark, but not in Sweden. This suggests that LTC coverage shapes the impact of care-giving on quality of life.

Services providing practical support are a key component in the spectrum of social care assisting older people to age in place. Te Puāwaitanga o Ngā Tapuwae Kia Ora Tonu/Life and Living in Advanced Age: A Cohort Study in New Zealand (LiLACS NZ), a longitudinal study of Māori and non-Māori in advanced age, aims to determine predictors of successful ageing and to understand trajectories of health and wellbeing. This paper investigates whether household living arrangements (living alone or with others) might explain previously reported gender and ethnic differences in support service utilisation. We had shown that women and non-Māori received more services than men and Māori despite better health. The results of analyses in this paper show that, as expected, poorer physical function led to increased service use. After controlling for functional status, household living arrangements (living alone) were the next strongest driver of service use. In a fully adjusted model, previously observed differences around gender and ethnicity were no longer significant predictors of support service use. However, gender and ethnicity do shape living arrangements in advanced age. Women in advanced age are more likely to live alone, consequently needing more outside support, whereas men are more likely to have a spouse/partner able to provide care. Māori are more likely to live in multigenerational households, the care available at home meaning they are less likely to qualify for formal support. This study points to a need for understanding how gender and ethnicity interact with living arrangements and suggests that inequities may not be absent when the presence of others in a household renders an older person ineligible for formal care.

This paper examines associations between early and mid-lifecourse events with economic activity in later life. These lifecourse trajectories are in turn examined for their impact on the pathways of men and women to retirement, including whether these pathways are perceived by individuals as been chosen or imposed. Data are from the three waves (2005, 2008 and 2011) of the French version of the Gender and Generations survey and comprise a sub-sample of 2,016 respondents in the birth cohort 1941–1960 who participated in all three waves. The analysis is undertaken within a gender perspective and in the context of the (de)standardisation of the lifecourse. The results show that mid-life and later-life work history, job category, employment sector and economic activity are influenced by early lifecourse events for both men and for women. Different pathways to retirement are observed according to institutional factors that determine access to pension rights. Women whose family formation occurred early, together with women who had an absence of family events (partnership or childlessness), were much more likely to be economically active in later life than men with the same characteristics. The results suggest that institutionalised (standardised) lifecourse patterns exist simultaneously with individualised (destandardised) patterns.

This article explores the conditions for extended working life from an organising perspective. Based on the idea that temporality makes up a fundamental organising dimension, it discusses conceptions of internal job mobility, and if and when employees are expected to relocate to a different unit at work. The material consists of interviews with 11 men between the ages of 56 and 74, working in manual and managerial capacities at a foundry of a Swedish branch of a large international steel company. The results show that internal work mobility is regulated by normative assumptions of mobility in terms of on- and off-time. This socio-temporal order constructs younger age groups as the age normality while designating the older employees’ transitions as a normative breach. It is also shown that the temporal order constitutes a disciplining element steering employees from an early stage to plan for limitations that may arise as a result of ageism and/or physical changes. The result confirms that transition to less-physically demanding tasks is a prerequisite for continuing working in a physically demanding job. These transitions are not, however, included in the socio-temporal order of the company, but are presented as the older employees’ individual problem. All together, these results show the need to introduce organisational practices and corporate strategies in the debate on extended working life.

The sector of temporary employment agencies in Belgium has been growing for more than 20 years. If temporary work is seen primarily as a path into the workforce for young people, it also concerns seniors, in increasing proportions. The problematic of end-of-career temporary work was analysed from a dual perspective, considering the embedding of temporalities in advanced modernity and more broadly the ‘lifecourse’ paradigm. A typology was created based on qualitative analysis of 36 semi-structured interviews of temporary workers ⩾45 years old. Results demonstrate how the experiences of temporary workers nearing retirement depend on professional, familial and social paths, and also reveal the presence of different cultural models: What is the importance of work in construction of an identity? What standards and values are applied? How is social time prioritised according to these norms? These analyses incorporate an intersectional framework in which gender and social inequalities structure the lives of workers approaching the end of their careers.

Compared to younger age groups, older people spend more time in their locality and rely more heavily on its pedestrian and public transport infrastructure. Qualitative studies provide unique insight into people's experiences. We conducted a qualitative evidence synthesis of United Kingdom-based studies of older people's experiences of travelling in the urban environment. We searched health, social science, age-related and transport-related databases from 1998 to 2017. Fourteen papers (from 12 studies) were included in a thematic synthesis, a three-staged process that moves iteratively between codes, descriptive themes and cross-cutting analytical themes. Emerging themes were discussed with policy advisers. Four overarching themes were identified. The first and second theme pointed to the importance of ‘getting out’ and of being independent travellers. The third and fourth themes highlighted how local environments and travel systems enabled (or prevented) older people from realising these valued dimensions of travel. The loss of local amenities and micro-environmental features, such as pavement quality, personal safety and aesthetic appearance, were recurrent concerns. Free modes of travel like walking and bus travel were highly valued, including the social engagement they facilitated. Our review suggests that, while its extrinsic value (reaching destinations) matters, the intrinsic value of travel matters too. The process of travel is experienced and enjoyed for its own sake, with older people describing its contribution to their wellbeing.

Caring for one's grandchildren has become a more common experience for individuals partly as a result of a longer overlap between the lives of grandparents and their grandchildren. Existing research shows that around 50 per cent of grandparents engage in some grandparental child care in most European countries, however, this proportion is higher among older people with a migrant background, partly due to greater economic necessity among migrant families. Research has also highlighted ethnic differences in parents’ child-care selection, even after controlling for their socio-economic status. Building on these strands of work, this paper investigates the differences in the use of (grandparental) child care among parents from different Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups in the United Kingdom, using data from Understanding Society. The results show that parents from Other White, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and African communities are less likely to use child care than White British parents, while the opposite is true for Caribbean parents. However, among parents using child care, individuals from the Other White, Caribbean and African groups are less likely than the White British majority to be using grandparental child care as a supplement to other child-care types, or on its own. Ethnic differentials in the use of child care per se and grandparental child care in particular, have significant policy implications, and may mask other kinds of ethnic differences.

In policy debates it is commonly claimed that older workers are entering a period of choice and control. In contrast, Guy Standing's book The Precariat: The Dangerous New Class, published in 2011, argues that older people are increasingly joining the ‘precariat’, by taking low-level jobs to supplement dwindling pension incomes. We argue that many older workers, not just those in ‘precarious jobs’, feel a sense of ‘ontological precarity’. Pressures to work longer, combined with limited alternative employment prospects and inadequate retirement incomes, give rise to a heightened sense of precarity. We develop a new theoretical model for understanding precarity as a lived experience, which is influenced by the intersection between precarious jobs, precarious welfare states and precarious households. This model is then illustrated using qualitative research from two organisations in the United Kingdom: ‘Local Government’ and ‘Hospitality’. In both organisations, older workers experienced a sense of ontological precarity because they worried about the long-term sustainability of their jobs and saw limited alternative sources of retirement income. Household circumstances either reinforced interviewees’ sense of precarity, or acted as a buffer against it. This was particularly important for women, as they typically accrued smaller financial resources in their own right. Our concluding discussion builds on this more advanced theoretical understanding of older worker precarity to call for a rethinking of state and employer support for decisions around later-life working and retirement.

Despite its benefits for prolonging careers, participation in training is far lower among older employees (age 50+) than among younger employees. This study analyses gender differences in older employees’ training participation. To investigate the predictors of training intensity, we examine two forms of training: formal educational programmes and on-the-job training. The study draws on a novel data-set, the European Sustainable Workforce Survey, carried out in nine European countries in 2015 and 2016, analysing 2,517 older employees and their managers, spread over 228 organisations. We concentrate on the interplay between employees’ gender, managers’ gender and managers’ ageism in shaping older employees’ training participation. Our findings indicate comparable training participation of older men and women in both forms of training, yet older women more often pay for enrolment in educational programmes themselves. Also, predictors of training participation are different. In line with the tenet of ‘gendered ageism’, we find that managerial ageism primarily targets older women, excluding female employees from the training opportunities available to their comparable male colleagues. Finally, female managers are associated with higher training participation rates for older employees, but only for older men. This result supports ‘queen bee’ arguments and runs counter to ‘homophily’ arguments. Overall, the study demonstrates that workplace dynamics and managerial decisions contribute to the reproduction of traditional gender divides in the late career.

With a policy shift towards personalisation of adult social care in England, much attention has focused on individualised support for older people with care needs. This article reports the findings of a scoping review of United Kingdom (UK) and non-UK literature, published in English from 2005 to 2017, about day centres for older people without dementia and highlights the gaps in evidence. This review, undertaken to inform new empirical research, covered the perceptions, benefits and purposes of day centres. Searches, undertaken in October/November 2014 and updated in August 2017, of electronic databases, libraries, websites, research repositories and journals, identified 77 relevant papers, mostly non-UK. Day centres were found to play a variety of roles for individuals and in care systems. The largest body of evidence concerned social and preventive outcomes. Centre attendance and participation in interventions within them impacted positively on older people's mental health, social contacts, physical function and quality of life. Evidence about outcomes is mainly non-UK. Day centres for older people without dementia are under-researched generally, particularly in the UK. In addition to not being studied as whole services, there are considerable evidence gaps about how day centres are perceived, their outcomes, what they offer, to whom and their wider stakeholders, including family carers, volunteers, staff and professionals who are funding, recommending or referring older people to them.

In many countries, population ageing is challenging the viability of the welfare state and generating higher demands for long-term care. At the same time, increasing participation in the labour force is essential to ensuring the sustainability of the welfare state. To address the latter issue, affected countries have adopted measures to increase employment; e.g. welfare recipients in Germany are required to be available for any type of legal work. However, 7 per cent of welfare benefit recipients in Germany provide long-term care for relatives or friends, and this care-giving may interfere with their job search efforts and decrease their employment opportunities. Our paper provides evidence of the relationship between the care responsibilities and employment chances of welfare recipients in Germany. Our analyses are based on survey data obtained from the panel study ‘Labour Market and Social Security’ and on panel regression methods. The results reveal a negative relationship between intensive care-giving (ten or more hours per week) and employment for male and female welfare recipients. However, employment prospects recover when care duties end and are subsequently no longer lower for carers than for non-carers.

Swedish nursing homes’ use of Instagram has increased vastly in the past few years. Instagram is understood as a means to manage the image they wish to mediate to the public. This article examines what is displayed in the nursing homes’ Instagram accounts, and what kind of reality is thereby constructed. The data consist of 338 Instagram images from four nursing homes’ Instagram accounts. It is found that nursing home life is primarily depicted on Instagram as active, sociable and fun, with informal, friendly relations between staff and residents, and residents able to continue to live as before, if not better, and to interact with surrounding society. Frailty, boredom, loneliness and death were absent from the data, as were mundane care activities. The article concludes that the presentations in the Instagram accounts challenge the traditional idea of nursing homes as total institutions, and the decline and loss associated with living in such institutions; however, there is a risk that these idyllic presentations conceal the inherent problems of nursing home life.

Policies to extend working life (EWL) assume homogeneous workers face similar choices about working longer: this may be difficult for women, workers in physically onerous jobs or in low-paid precarious employment. Work-life trajectories are gendered; women interrupt employment and pension-building to provide care. There is occupational variation in capacities to prolong working lives: physically demanding jobs cause work-related health deficits. The precariously employed cannot contribute regularly to pensions and may face age discrimination. This research provides an inter-occupational and cross-national dimension to EWL research, comparing women teachers and health-care workers in the United States of America (USA) and Republic of Ireland. It documents intra-cohort distinctions that emerge among women when considering educational opportunities and occupational tracks expressed in lifecourse trajectories and accumulated capacities for extended work. Analysis draws on interview data from ten teachers and ten health-care workers in each country, comparing the implications of EWL policies for women workers: in precarious versus secure occupations and occupations with different physical demands. It reveals work-life trajectories leading to poorer financial and health outcomes for older health-care workers, especially in the USA. Most women (regardless of occupation or country) opposed extending working life, with concerns ranging from health status and ability to work to the desire to have healthy years in retirement. The most important distinctions are between the occupational categories considered, rather than cross-national differences. Implications for national and work-place policy and research are considered.