Due to demographic developments, the number of immigrant families with older members is growing across Western Europe. Poised between the different approaches to care in their countries of origin and destination, such families are treading new ground as they negotiate support for older family members. Based on semi-structured interviews with 26 older and younger family members from 20 Turkish immigrant families in Denmark, this article investigates the broad variation in how these families approach caring for older people. At one end of the scale, some families (re)create a traditional Turkish approach to care in which three generations live together and the daughter-in-law is the main care provider. At the other end of the scale, some families follow the Danish approach in which families rely on public care provision. In between these two poles, many families devise a variety of care solutions for their older members that often rely on considerable support by family. Utilising Cati Coe's concept of care-scription, the analysis shows how families negotiate – and sometimes struggle over – who will shoulder which tasks. In the post-migration context, daughters-in-law are often able to retreat from their traditional role of care provider, which in turn increases expectations of daughters' care provisions. In Denmark, which is a relatively gender-equal society, Turkish daughters may seek to make their brothers take on a greater role in the provision of care for their parents, and in some families, the children also turn towards public care provisions to share the burden of parental care. Resistance from older parents may, however, short-circuit this strategy. Overall, the study points both to the difficulties faced by older immigrants with limited host-country language proficiency when utilising public European care provisions and to the complex and unsettled nature of care provisions in immigrant families in Europe today.

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.

A large literature has examined early-life insult and later-life health outcomes. However, whether early-life exposure might persist into the outcomes of future generations remains unclear. Using data from the China Family Panel Studies, this study examines the intergenerational effects of early-life health shocks during the great famine in China, distinguishes the intergenerational effects of in utero and early-life famine exposure, and estimates whether there is a sex-specific transgenerational response. Difference-in-difference results show that first-generation male in utero famine exposure (1959–1961) is associated with a series of health and economic disadvantages in the second generation, compared with the unexposed post-famine-born cohort (1964–1965) in China. The effect persists in the third generation but attenuates, and there is no same-sex transgenerational response. These findings may suggest a novel source of multigenerational persistence in health and economic poverty and may point to a need to consider evidence of transgenerational mechanisms.

Immigrants commonly report difficulties with developing social connections post-transition, which can lead to social isolation as they age. Understanding what factors promote/hinder the social integration of immigrants is an important public health objective. We tested the public health model of social integration of Berkman et al. in a sample of older immigrants. This model calls for considering both the social conditions in which social networks are embedded (upstream influences) and the levels of social support offered by different types of networks (downstream influences). First, we derived an empirical typology of social networks of older immigrants. Next, we tested associations of social networks with upstream and downstream influences. Data came from the New Zealand Health, Work and Retirement Study. The sample included 568 older adults (54% male) who immigrated as adults (mean length of stay = 28.5 years, standard deviation = 12.5). Latent profile analysis was employed on responses to the Practitioner Assessment of Network Type to identify social networks. Associations with upstream and downstream correlates were tested using logistic and multiple regression. Four network configurations emerged: ‘private-restricted’ (43.4%), ‘family-dependent’ (35.8%), ‘locally integrated’ (10.9%) and ‘wider community-based’ (9%). Having shorter length of residence and individualistic cultural background was predictive of being in a restricted network (private-restricted, family-dependent). Being in a restricted network was associated with lower levels of social support. Network type interacted with partner status: having a partner buffered the negative impact of having a restricted network on social support. Although restricted networks are common among older immigrants, they do not necessarily result in compromised social support. While we may see differences across countries regarding the impact of specific upstream and downstream influences, our findings highlight that both contextual and individual-level resources need to be considered alongside network structure to promote social integration of immigrants as they age.

Informal care-givers play an important role, with health-care systems relying on the billions of hours of care they provide. Care-givers experience high levels of psychological distress and isolation; however, the efficacy of what support is the best for care-givers is unclear. The primary aim of this systematic review is to determine the effect of group creative arts interventions on informal care-givers of adults. The secondary aim is to understand the impact of group type, the primary outcomes and how they are measured. Given the heterogeneous nature of the included studies, a narrative synthesis approach was taken. Database searches identified 2,587 studies, 25 of which met the full inclusion criteria. Studies included group creative arts interventions for either care-givers only (N = 8) or for care-giver/cared-for dyads (N = 17). The majority of the participants in the studies were older Caucasian females. Group creative arts interventions are beneficial for care-givers and for the person being cared for; however, benefits differ depending on whether the group is for care-givers only or for care-giver/cared-for dyads. Future research will benefit from care-givers being involved in the design of the creative arts intervention to provide input regarding group type and relevant outcome measures. Future research should consider targeting their intervention to care-givers with a low baseline score to increase the ability of the study to demonstrate a significant difference.

Involvement in sports is considered a powerful way to generate social capital. However, the role of sport engagement in the development of social relationships of older adults has not received much attention. Remarkably, there is a lack of empirical evidence on the quality and diversity of social relations built through active sport participation and spectatorship. This paper attempts to assess the relationship between sport engagement and various measures of network social capital, including the extension and quality of social networks and the heterogeneity of personal relationships. Also, it proposes new and more informative measurements of an individual's quantity and quality of social ties. By analysing data from a survey in Spain (N = 600) and applying logistic regressions, the results show that sport participation and attendance at sporting events are closely related to different dimensions of network social capital. Concerning people who are not actively engaged in sports, more extensive social networks characterise those who frequently attend sporting events. In contrast, active sport participation is associated with the extensity and quality measures of social connectedness, the level of satisfaction with friends and the opportunity to enjoy close relationships. Therefore, this paper provides new evidence on how sport engagement may result in tighter and extensive networks for older adults and serve as support for emphasising sports, physical activity and leisure as strategies for maintaining and boosting older people's social and psychological health.

The physical and societal characteristics of home have been established as important in influencing the health and wellbeing of older adults, yet these have rarely been explored together. There is also limited research into variation across age groups, with older adults often examined as a homogenous group of those 65 years and over. This study advances the knowledge base by using the concept of person–environment (P-E) fit to analyse differences in personal and home environment (physical and societal) characteristics between young-old (65–74 years) and old-old (75 and above) age groups, and to assess how these characteristics influence their self-perceived health. This cross-sectional study draws upon survey data from 1,999 older adult participants from the Australian Housing Conditions Dataset. Descriptive statistics and inferential analysis were used to assess for significant differences between age groups and a binomial logistic regression was utilised to examine influences on health. The analysis found that the factors which influence health varies appreciably between age groups. For the young-old financial strain, being on the fixed-income pension and hypertension were important contributing factors, in contrast for the old-old gender (being male), having depression and the home being modified for disability were key influences. For both age groups heart disease was a contributing factor to perceived health. The results indicate the important contribution to knowledge of incorporating a wide range of person and environment characteristics when exploring P-E fit for older adults. The inclusion of societal aspects, such as financial strain, fixed-income pension, tenure and access to community aged care services when exploring influences on health, arises as a key conclusion of the study. In terms of impact, this research is significant given rising inequalities globally and specifically in the Australian context, the need for policy measures to address income inequality, and its health and social implications for older households.

The need to ensure the economic wellbeing and quality of life of those who reach the official retirement age is a matter of concern in the world of social services and in social policy making. Since some working older adults may be forced to retire when they reach the official retirement age while others retire voluntarily, the study is based on a dedicated survey among 508 persons who retired both willingly and unwillingly for good after reaching the official retirement age and 437 persons who continued working uninterruptedly. The findings show that the odds of staying on the job after retirement age are contingent on the socio-demographic and health-related characteristics of the older adult. Furthermore, the economic predictors of remaining in the labour force after retirement age depend on how strongly the older adult wishes to retire. Those who continue working after retirement age and those who retire willingly are undifferentiated in the level of financial support that they give others. Comparing older adults who continue working uninterruptedly with those who retire unwillingly, the chances of being among the former are higher among those who are better off before reaching retirement age. These results emphasise the need to extend welfare and financial-support policies to older adults who are forced to retire, in order to minimise the economic blow that this path to retirement causes.

Sleep is vital for health and wellbeing across the lifecourse. Ethnic differences have been observed with regards to the prevalence and predictors of self-reported sleep problems. An understanding of sleep experiences with ageing and across ethnicities is required to better support older people. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 23 people living in Aotearoa/New Zealand aged 61–92 years (12 Māori and 11 non-Māori) concerning current sleep status, changes over their lifecourse and personal strategies for supporting good sleep. Participants typically expressed satisfaction with current sleep (usually pertaining to duration) or feelings that sleep was compromised (usually pertaining to waking function). Comparisons to a socially perceived ‘ideal’ sleep were common, with sleep transitions presented as a gradual and accepted part of ageing. Participants resisted medicalising sleep disruptions in older age. While participants were aware of ways to enhance their sleep, many acknowledged engaging in practices that undermined it. Unique insights from some Māori participants indicated that sleep disruptions were not so readily pathologised compared to Western views and that sleeplessness could provide opportunity for cultural or spiritual connection. Common narratives underpinning the themes were: ‘You don't need as much sleep when you're older’, ‘Sleep just fits in’ and ‘Having the time of my life’. Findings provide personal experiences and cultural interpretations relating to sleep and ageing. This provides the foundation for future participatory research to co-design sleep health messages which are meaningful for ageing well across ethnicities.

Many existing studies lack a comprehensive picture of the social exclusion statuses and health outcomes of empty nesters and those empty nesters living alone or with a spouse only. Cross-sectional analysis was conducted on representative national data from the 2014 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey, focusing on respondents aged 60 and above (N = 7,923). Four dimensions of social exclusion (social relationships, subjective feeling of being excluded, social activities and financial products) and three health outcomes (self-reported health (SRH), activities of daily living (ADLs) and depression), were considered. Results show that ‘empty nest’ older people were more likely to be excluded from social relationships and to experience subjective feelings of being excluded, and were less likely to participate in social activities than non-empty nesters. Empty nesters were significantly less likely to report fair SRH and ADL difficulties than non-empty nesters, but they were more likely to report having depression than non-empty nesters. Among ‘empty nest’ older people, empty nesters who were living alone were associated with higher levels of being excluded from social relationships and to experience subjective feelings of being excluded than those who were living with a spouse only. Future research could focus on the development of age-friendly communities which act as health interventions to address relevant situations of social exclusion and depression among empty nesters.

Many countries have implemented policies to extend working lives in response to population ageing, yet there remains little understanding of what drives paid work in later life, nor how this is changing over time. This paper utilises the 1988/89 Survey of Retirement and Retirement Plans, the 1999 British Household Panel Survey and the 2008 English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, to investigate drivers of paid work in the ten years surrounding state pension age (SPA) for women and men in, comparing cohorts born in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Using optimal matching analysis with logistic and multinomial regression models, the study assesses the relative importance of lifecourse histories, socio-economic circumstances and contemporaneous factors, in determining paid work in mid- and later life. Participation in paid work in the five years preceding and beyond SPA increased markedly for men and women across cohorts, with women's lifecourses and engagement with paid work changing considerably in these periods. However, for women, a lifetime history of paid work remained a crucially important predictor of paid work in later life, and this relationship has strengthened over time. Experiencing divorce has also become an important driver of paid work around SPA for the youngest cohort. Having children later, and still having a mortgage, also independently predict labour force participation for women and men. Across all cohorts and for women and men, working at these older ages was a function of higher income and better health. These findings suggest that policies which enable people to maintain ties to paid work across the lifecourse may be more effective at encouraging later-life employment than those concerned only with postponing the retirement transition.

A large body of literature shows that the emotional health of rural elders in China is negatively affected by the migration of their adult children. However, the precise mechanism that underpins this relationship has yet to be fully uncovered. This paper introduces two new dimensions of analysis to expand the understanding of this ‘left behind’ phenomenon, and offers statistical insights, theoretical explanations and policy recommendations, as well as suggestions for further study. Firstly, in this paper, rural elders have been distinguished based on whether all, or any, of their adult children have migrated. This distinction leads to the finding that rural elders suffer more adverse mental health impacts when all adult children from a household move away. Secondly, the temporal dimension of migration is investigated, finding that there is a ‘turning point’ after which the mental health of rural elders appears to recover after the migration of their adult children. Comparison of the two groups shows that rural elders who see any of their adult children migrate recover from depression twice as quickly as those who see all of their children migrate. Receiving financial support or providing child care can only partly mediate the negative influence of migration. Also, the level of depression and wellbeing of rural elders can be significantly moderated by the emotional closeness between them and their adult children. Providing (grand)child-care assistance and receiving economic support is shown to have smaller mitigating effects. This paper concludes with a discussion of how the notion of ‘filial piety’ could, directly and indirectly, play a role in the emotional health of rural elders, with policy implications provided.

Relationships and marriages between couples with intellectual disability are to be celebrated, as is the longer life expectancy now enjoyed by many with intellectual disability. However, dementia disproportionately affects people with intellectual disability, especially people with Down's syndrome. Research into experiences of couples without intellectual disability who are affected by dementia suggests that a relational perspective provides health and social care professionals with information to support the wellbeing of both partners. This dyadic perspective is missing for couples with an intellectual disability where one partner has dementia. There is currently no evidence base informing how each partner may best be supported. This scoping review, with three separate searches, aims to address this gap. The first search sought to establish if any studies had explored the experiences of couples with intellectual disability where one partner has dementia. After determining that no studies have been published to date, the review explores what is known about relationships in the context of dementia (N = 8) and in the context of intellectual disability (N = 10), in second and third searches. Different ways to approach care and support in relationships among partners, staff and other family members were identified and it was evident that support could act as a facilitator as well as a barrier to people and their relationships. While the lives of couples affected by dementia appeared to remain largely private, couples with intellectual disability had a high involvement of staff and family members in their life. Potential implications for future research with couples with intellectual disability affected by dementia are discussed, highlighting the importance of exploring how couples navigate emotional complexities and changes in their relationship, while understanding that the context in which the lives of people with intellectual disability take place and relationships happen is different.

Older adults' engagement in various prosocial activities is a salient question in present-day societies that aim to promote active ageing. However, there are only a few studies focusing on associations between several types of prosocial activities, and they have rarely considered help to relatives and friends separately. Moreover, there is lack of studies considering informal monetary help and charity donations when analysing multiple prosocial activities. Using population-based data of older Finns (N = 2,184), we examined whether providing informal help (i.e. practical help, financial support or personal care) to relatives and friends is associated with participation in volunteering and charity, respectively. Overall, 5 per cent of the participants provided all examined forms of informal help and volunteered, 16 per cent provided two types of help and volunteered, and 23 per cent provided one type of help and volunteered. In addition, 9 per cent of the participants provided all types of informal help and made charitable donations, 33 per cent provided two types of help and made charitable donations, and 54 per cent provided one type of help and made charitable donations. Practical help and care channelled outside the household were associated with an increased probability of volunteering, although they were not associated with the probability of making charitable donations. Practical help, financial support and personal care provided to friends were particularly important predictors of volunteering and charity. These results are discussed in the context of the role overload and role extension hypotheses.

This study examines whether the gender gap in long-term care use in the Netherlands has changed between 1995 and 2016. Previous research has shown that women use more formal care services than men, while men use more informal care. In the past decades, there have been changes in the individual determinants of care use, such as health and social resources, and care provision. This raises the question of whether gender differences in care use have also changed over time. The Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA) involved respondents aged 70–88 in seven waves: 1995/96, 1998/99, 2002/03, 2005/06, 2008/09, 2011/12 and 2015/16 (N = 6,527 observations). Generalised estimating equations (GEE) were used to analyse changes in the impact of gender on the use of informal and formal home care, residential care and private home care, and the non-use of care. Men used more informal care provided by a partner than women, but women used other sources of care more than men. Individual social resources explained the gender gap in informal and formal home care use, and health and social resources explained the gap in residential care. In the non-use of care and, to some extent, in residential care use, the gender gap widened over the years to the disadvantage of men and was not explained by health and social resources. The persistent and even increasing gender gap in the non-use of care over time warrants an exploration of the role of gender in seeking care and access to care, and a closer examination of the role of long-term care policies in maintaining this gap.

Older adults have been statistically proved to be at a higher risk of getting severely infected by the coronavirus COVID-19, evoking sweeping narratives of compassionate ageism surrounding them in different discourses. By analysing the media content, scholars from different areas have alerted us about the amplified ageism aroused by the pandemic crisis. However, we are still short of empirical evidence to learn how ageism is constructed in diverse sociocultural contexts in the wake of this global pandemic crisis. This study provides the case of Hong Kong to reflect on how ageism, as a set of social inequalities, is constructed. By examining 814 articles collected from the three most popular newspapers with different political orientations in Hong Kong, this study uses quantitative and qualitative content analysis to examine how older people have been generally represented. Then it further compares how these representations have been influenced by the media's liberal or conservative preferences. Third, it examines the relationship between the political orientation of newspapers and how different forms of ageism are constructed. The findings indicate that despite the liberal or conservative inclination of the three newspapers, they portray the older population as frail, dependent and deprived not only at the biomedical level but in all aspects of life. This study also reveals that the newspapers with a populist inclination in both camps have shown more hostile attitudes in representing compassionate ageism. In contrast, liberal and conservative-leaning media affirmed the government's dominant role in taking full responsibility for caring for the older population. The findings indicate that the polarised ageism frame cannot fully explain the underpinnings of ageism and implied policy processing in different contexts.

Although volunteering is considered a good strategy for successful ageing, not many older adults are engaged in voluntary work and those who are do so mainly sporadically. This study focuses on time invested in volunteering rather than on doing voluntary work or not, as is often done in studies so far. By combining the theory of resources for volunteering with a functional and structural approach to volunteering, this cross-sectional study seeks to shed light on a wide range of factors associated with the intensity of volunteering. The study is based on a sample of 1,599 volunteers aged 50 and older participating in the Norwegian study on Life Course, Ageing and Generation Study (NorLAG). The survey includes, among others, detailed information about demographics and time invested in voluntary work and questions about attitudes, motivations, structural and other potential barriers to volunteering. Multivariate linear regression analyses indicate that a religious attitude is associated with elevated hours spent on voluntary work, while co-habitation is associated with a decreased engagement in voluntary work. In addition, people who are motivated to volunteer because they find it interesting and because volunteering allows them to use their competence spend more time volunteering. Human capital, i.e. education, income and subjective health, are not associated with the number of hours invested in voluntary work. The likelihood of contributing more volunteering hours of older men is 17.5 per cent higher than that of older women. We found no indication of a relation between work status, functional limitations, urbanisation or ethnicity and voluntary work engagement. Policies aiming to increase time investment of volunteers should strive for an optimal fit between the nature of the voluntary work and the interests and skills of the volunteers. In designing interventions to stimulate higher engagement in voluntary work, one should further promote strategies for flexible time commitment.

Sleep is an integral part of individuals' health and wellbeing. Despite evidence showing that social stressors are important contributors to older adults' sleep problems, how the accumulative stressful life events (SLEs) and ageing attitudes independently and jointly affect sleep quality among older adults in developing countries remains unclear. This study examined the effects of SLEs on subjectively rated sleep quality among older adults in China, and explored the potential mediating and moderating roles of positive and negative ageing attitudes on the above association. Using data from the 2014 China Longitudinal Ageing Social Survey, we had complete data for 7,780 older adults aged 60 and older. We employed logistic regression models and the Karlson–Holm–Breen decomposition method. Our findings indicated that SLEs significantly increased the risk of poor sleep quality, especially for those who had experienced two or more SLEs during the past year. Positive ageing attitudes were associated with lower odds of poor sleep quality, whereas negative ageing attitudes were related to higher odds of poor sleep quality. Moreover, the mediation analyses suggested that SLEs were associated with poor sleep quality via negative ageing attitudes. The moderating effects further documented that higher levels of positive ageing attitudes can significantly attenuate the deleterious impact of SLEs on sleep quality. The findings highlight the significance of SLEs for older adults' sleep quality and shed light on the importance of ageing attitudes to improve older adults' sleep in China as well as other low- and middle-income countries, where the social safety nets are still underdeveloped.

Loneliness and social isolation are important social determinants of wellbeing of older adults. Conversational exchanges can promote connectedness between older adults, however, conversations may not always come easy. Research shows that exposure to nature-based stimuli such as pictures and videos can stimulate social aspirations and trigger associations that could facilitate conversations, in particular when nature scenery is perceived as fascinating, mysterious, spacious and suited for social interaction. Therefore, this study investigated whether exposure to these nature characteristics (high versus low) lead to associations that could act as conversational material. A randomised factorial design, using a virtual reality-based approach for experimental control, led to 17 different virtual representations of nature (VN). In total, 150 participants (60 years and older) were recruited for an online survey. Spontaneous associations were coded on personal engagement and valence. The number of associations was measured with one multiple-choice question. VN exposure successfully triggered personally engaging and positively valenced associations and were related to multiple associations, in particular when the VN were high on mystery. Furthermore, positive effects of VN exposure was more pronounced for participants with high (rather than low) levels of nature relatedness and many (rather than few) available nature opportunities. These findings indicate that VN exposure provides fertile ground for conversations as a means to promote connectedness and social wellbeing of older adults.

Ideas of well-being in old age are often anchored in the successful ageing paradigm, foregrounding independence, activeness and autonomy. However, for those oldest old living in nursing homes, these goals are largely out of reach. In this article, we use the meta-ethnographic method to explore and reinterpret existing findings on the ways in which well-being is experienced (or not) by the oldest old in institutional care settings. We frame our findings in existential well-being theory, which understands wellbeing as a sense of ‘dwelling-mobility’. Our analysis resulted in the following themes: (a) institutionalisation as both restrictive and liberating; (b) reciprocity and mattering: the importance of being seen; (c) the need for kinship and the problem of ruptured sociality; (d) rethinking agency: situated, delegated and supported; and (e) lowered expectations: receiving care is not a passive act. We conclude that while institutional care environments are not always conducive to well-being, this does not have to be so. By shifting our focus from successful ageing ideals onto relationally situated care practices, a possibility for existential well-being opens up, even in situations of decline and care dependency.