Widowhood is often described through stereotypes and images of passive, weak, lonely and dependent women. This study presents additional aspects of widows who have chosen to continue their lives without a new spouse. It thus joins the recently growing body of knowledge which presents widowhood in a less one-dimensional way while referring to the complexity and different layers of widows' lives. A qualitative study was conducted with 30 women aged 63–87 who had been widows for 1–34 years. The findings showed that the dominant experience shared by all women is one of liberation and freedom – a feeling of independence that is expressed socially, personally and economically. Thus, alongside feelings of loneliness and adaptation difficulties, they also experience strength and empowerment. The term ‘gender contract’ serves as a theoretical explanation of the independence narrative that characterises the widows; the termination of the couple's gender contract allows them to redefine their priorities, identify themselves as active instead of passive figures and create for themselves a place of their own. By bringing widowhood to the centre of the discussion, the study gives legitimacy to a discourse on feelings less spoken about, such as relief, freedom and independence. In this way, the study contributes to the ongoing debate on widows by shattering the accepted myth of widows as vulnerable, weak and dependent but without underestimating the difficulties or ignoring the women's diversity.

The agency of a person with young onset dementia (YOD) changes owing to individual symptoms, uncertainty about the speed of progression and the severity of YOD. Dementia usually greatly interrupts life and reduces agency. Previous studies show that some people and families integrate and cope with dementia better than others. This study aimed to find out how YOD changes the agency of the person who has it and what family members’ role is in forming their agency. The data were collected in Finland in semi-structured interviews with 14 people with YOD and 15 family members, about a year after the diagnosis. These two data sets were analysed with a narrative method, actantial analysis. A wide variety of elements, both human and non-human factors, were found to promote and undermine agency. It was found that people with YOD need both integrity and flexibility to reconstruct their own agency. Resources support them in this process of reconstruction, and hinderers interrupt the process. This combination of integrity and flexibility, resources and hinderers, generates how people with YOD recount the future, the aims they set and how they reconstruct their agency. Other people, especially family members, are part of this dynamic process and when their relationship is cohesive, the agency of both parties increases. The participants used ideal and burdensome storylines to narrate factors that supported or interrupted their agency. Based on our findings, narrating one’s situation is, for coping, not only a means but its very basis.

Older adults who have had a major depressive disorder (MDD) have a high risk of relapse. Although risk factors for depression have been researched extensively, less is known about protective factors, and what experiences might strengthen subsequent resilience and help to prevent relapse. Therefore, this qualitative study explored factors of resilience in older adults who recovered from MDD and did not relapse across at least six years. Twenty-five semi-structured interviews were held with older adults aged 73–85 years who participated in the Netherlands Study of Depression in Older Persons from 2008 to 2014 and were re-interviewed for the present study in 2020–2021. Participants were defined as resilient based on having an MDD diagnosis at baseline but not on two- and six-year follow-up. We used grounded theory coding techniques and thematic analysis to identify factors contributing to resilience. Factors contributing to resilience included: taking agency; receiving social support and engaging in social activities; doing activities individually; and managing thought processes. Resilience after late-life depression appeared to be a dynamic process involving internal and external factors, including finding a balance between rest and activity, between taking initiative and receiving support by others, and between accepting negative emotions and ignoring negative thoughts. Additionally, the ability to learn from depression shows that resilience is not only about avoiding psychopathology, but also about the recovery process and preventing relapse. These findings highlight the need for research and interventions to focus on understanding and influencing the dynamics underlying resilience.

The unstable employment trajectories and low wages of Chilean workers mean that the amount of savings accrued in pension funds are often insufficient to cope with the high costs of living in the country, compelling many older adults to remain in the labour market. Although financial need seems to be an important reason for post-retirement work in Chile, a national survey revealed that a majority of older workers would like to remain employed even if there were no economic need. Hence, this research aims at exploring the intrinsic work motivation of older Chilean adults beyond retirement age. This qualitative study is the second phase of mixed-methods research to analyse the factors influencing post-retirement work in Chile. A total of 32 in-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with older workers in the formal labour market who were legally entitled to retire but continued being economically active in Santiago, Chile. The data are analysed using thematic analysis. We identify three main emerging themes, namely the meaning that work gives to life, future projects and post-retirement orientations, and work as the primary source of social interaction. The findings of this study provide valuable insight into intrinsic work motivation, highlighting important gender and occupational differences. It makes a significant contribution not only to the literature but also potentially to national policy makers as well as employers, indicating the need to adjust the labour market to the ageing workforce.

This study contributes to an emerging body of research that combines new mobilities and gerontological perspectives. Most previous studies on older adults’ mobilities have analysed data collected at a single point in time and there is a need for studies that explore the meanings of movement and non-movement over time, especially in relation to unexpected life events. This work explores the meanings of older adults’ abruptly changing everyday (im)mobilities before and during the Covid-19 pandemic. It draws from qualitative interviews conducted with 11 older adults in a Finnish suburb in autumn 2019 and spring 2020, and focuses on grocery shopping, which most of the participants did themselves before the pandemic, but not during it. The findings provide insight into how meanings of everyday (im)mobilities are formed as older individuals (re)negotiate their relationships with their changing places of ageing. The participants’ views of their disrupted everyday mobilities were shaped by active person–place engagements. On one hand, the findings highlight that individuals are not at the mercy of their circumstances; they possess agency that can enable maintaining a sense of self and independence even in restricted mobility situations. On the other hand, the findings reveal relationalities that explain why sudden mobility loss often leads to diminished wellbeing. The relational nature of the meanings of (im)mobility implies that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to supporting older adults who face mobility difficulties while ageing in their homes. It is crucial to recognise the diversity of older adults and to support their individual lifestyles.

There is a need for new imaginaries of care and social health for people living with dementia at home. Day programmes are one ‘care in the community’ solution that requires further theorisation to ensure that its empirical base can usefully guide policy. In this paper we contribute to theorising day programmes through an ethnographic case study of one woman living with dementia at home using a day programme. We collected data through observations, interviews and artefacts. We observed Peg, whose case story is central in this paper, over 9 months for a total of 61 hours at the day programme, as well as during 16 hours of observation at her home and 2 community outings. We use a material semiotic approach to thinking about the day programme as a health ‘technology in practice’ to challenge the taken-for-granted ideas of day programmes as neutral, stable, bounded spaces. Peg’s case story is illustrative of how a day programme and its scripts come into relation with an arrangement of family care and life at home with dementia. At times the configuration of this arrangement works to provide a sort of stabilising distribution of care and space to allow Peg and her family to go on in the day-to-day life with dementia. At other times the arrangement may create limits to the care made possible. We argue that how we conceptualise and study day programmes and their relations to home and the broader care infrastructure affects the possibilities of care they can enact.

Recent debates on age-dissimilar romantic relationships have centred on newly formed relationships, asking whether they reflect shifts towards more equal and individualistic love, or more malleable and self-determined understandings of age. Yet, in a global context where age dissimilarities are shifting and populations are ageing, little attention has been paid to how these understandings of love and age might play out in couples’ futures, particularly in relation to care and gender. While median marital age differences have decreased in Australia and worldwide in recent decades, there has been a rise in larger gaps. In such cases, one partner will reach old age markedly earlier than the other. This article therefore examines how age-dissimilar couples imagine their futures together. It draws on 24 in-depth interviews with women and men in heterosexual, age-dissimilar relationships in Australia, with age differences of seven to 30 years. Talking about their love relationships, interviewees – especially those in older woman relationships – avoided discussing ageing or described age as meaningless or relative. For them, they argued, appearance, experience, personality and felt age took precedence over chronology. Conversations with older interviewees exposed gaps in this logic, however, and gendered anxieties about old age and responsibility for care. Interviewees’ discussions of their futures thus highlighted tensions in understandings about age(ing), gender, care and love. Love was thought to transcend age differences and facilitate care responsibilities for some but not others. Utilising the concepts of democratisation, responsibility and gendered double standards of ageing and care, this article complicates conceptions wherein age dissimilarities are seen to typify the growing meaninglessness of age and gendered equality of love.

Against the backdrop of demographic change and the pluralisation of living arrangements, the article focuses on repartnering after widowhood, divorce and separation in older age in Germany. While theoretically framing repartnering as a lifecourse transition, the question arises of how later-life relationships form in relation to gender- and ageing-specific as well as structural and processual dimensions. Since previous research indicates that there are gender-specific patterns when repartnering in older age which differ from repartnering in middle age, the article explicitly accounts for gendered ageing and attitudes towards ageing. Using data from the German Ageing Survey (1996–2017), longitudinal hybrid panel regressions are modelled for 3,653 respondents, 11,628 observations and 179 new relationships. I propose to understand within-effects as processual and between-effects as structural dimensions of repartnering. The results for the structural dimensions show that the likelihood of repartnering is higher for men and for individuals with more negative attitudes towards ageing. The results for the processual dimensions show how repartnering becomes less likely the older one gets and the more positive one's attitudes towards ageing become. The interaction term for gender and ageing shows that ageing has a stronger influence on the likelihood to repartner for women than for men. Additionally, the findings reveal a difference between forms of singlehood: in the short term, repartnering is less likely for divorced or separated individuals than for widowed individuals, whereas the opposite effect shows in the long term. In sensitising the lifecourse perspective with gender- and ageing-specific concepts and analytically separating processual and structural dimensions, this article demonstrates the importance of gendered ageing and of the linkage between relationship transitions. Applying hybrid panel models to lifecourse transitions in older age reveals the processual dynamic and structural embeddedness of repartnering in older age.

Despite internet use potentially reducing loneliness among older adults during the Covid-19 pandemic, quantitative research in this area is limited. Our study addresses this gap by exploring how internet use affects loneliness worsening in old age across Europe from a gendered perspective. We adopt a comprehensive approach, considering individual and contextual factors. Using multi-level modelling, we analyse data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (Wave 8 and Corona Survey 1), supplemented by the Oxford Covid-19 Government Response Tracker and the Eurostat Digital Agenda Scoreboard Key Indicators. The empirical analysis has revealed gender-specific differences in the relationship between internet use and the worsening of loneliness among older people during the pandemic, with internet use contributing to increased loneliness for older women, but not for men. In addition, our study indicates that while the contextual factors, namely the severity of the contingency measures and the quality of the internet connection, are not moderators of the relationship between internet use and loneliness worsening, the stringency index specifically exacerbates loneliness in women. These findings contribute to the development of more effective and targeted interventions to combat loneliness worsening and promote wellbeing among older women, particularly in the context of global health crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the light of an increasing future demand for long-term care services in ageing societies, families’ provision for current and future long-term care needs has been subject to debate. Within this context, there is little discussion about parents’ incentives to socialise their children to their own traits to achieve a desired child behaviour. Our study contributes to the literature by analysing to what extent parents transmit filial norms to their children and whether this transmission process affects children’s care-giving behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. Using data from the German Family Panel, we initially analyse the transmission of filial norms from mothers and fathers to their children. Second, we examine the importance of filial norms that prevail in the child’s local environment. Third, we assess whether an intergenerational transmission of norms transmits into child behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. We estimate linear regression models and account for child and parent characteristics as well as for the living environment. The results show that children have stronger filial norms when both parents report stronger filial norms. But, children also tend to be influenced by average norms in their local environment. Furthermore, children are more likely to provide support to a parent in need when their filial norms are stronger. We conclude that children’s filial norms are at least partially shaped via a process of socialisation and that these norms transmit into children’s care-giving behaviour if a parent needs long-term care. It is, therefore, important that filial norms that prevail in a society are in accordance with the institutional long-term care system that prevails within that country.

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.

Older adults who age at home independently are often celebrated as having anticipated and planned for their care needs in the later stages of life, whereas those who receive assistance from home support services are often stigmatised as dependent and characterised as a ‘drain on the system’. However, this thematic analysis of interview data from 12 home care clients in two Canadian provinces offers evidence that counters the assumption that home care clients are passive recipients of care. Extending Corbin and Strauss' theorisation of how individuals manage chronic conditions alongside Dorothy Smiths' conception of work, we explore how home care clients ‘work’ to receive care as they age in place. Specifically, home care clients not only engage in daily life work, illness work and biographical work, but also advocate for themselves and their workers, co-ordinate and negotiate with members of their caring convoys and networks, and adapt in various ways to navigate personal, relational, structural and policy-level challenges. We suggest that work done by older adults who are ageing in place be addressed, acknowledged and incorporated into care planning and operational policy development to challenge both the stigma of dependency and neoliberal narratives of self-sufficiency.

The COVID-19 pandemic foregrounded a numerical conception of age. Many of the targets of proposals to introduce age-specific restrictions are members of the ‘baby boomer’ generation, a generation that is widely recognised as having a youthful approach to ageing. Attending to arguments that baby boomers are a ‘bridging’ generation – i.e. they share cultural orientations with both preceding and succeeding generations – we argue that ‘bridging’ is a dynamic practice. Drawing on repeat interviews with 45 ‘war baby’ and baby boomer women conducted prior to the pandemic and shortly after the first national lockdown, the paper demonstrates how lockdown restrictions brought to light older women's relationships to, and investments in, spatial mobilities. We focus on how they experienced and understood (im)mobilities in three realms: home life, going places and social connection. Pre-pandemic, mobilities in each of these realms had been important to how the women established youthfulness and resisted being seen as ‘old’; mobilities helped older women ‘bridge’ with younger adult generations. This bridging was undermined practically, symbolically and discursively by their experiences of the lockdown, with profound consequences for perceptions of their ageing. Restrictions on spatial mobilities created conditions for older women to reassess and narrate the social world in generational terms. Their narratives provide an illuminating case study of the complex ways that generational cohort shapes experiences and self-understandings. We argue that the capacity of baby boomers to ‘bridge’ dynamically is a legacy of their youth.

Positively experienced relationships with family, partners and friends are the most important source of meaning in life for older persons. At the same time, Western countries are confronted with a growing number of socially isolated older adults who lack those relationships. This study aims to explore whether and how older adults who live in social isolation experience meaning in life. Data were collected via in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 24 socially isolated older adults, ranging in age from 62 to 94, all living in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The criterion-based sampling of participants took place in close consultation with social workers of a mentoring project for socially isolated older adults. Follow-up interviews with 22 participants improved the credibility of findings and contributed to the breadth and depth of the researched casuistry. Data were analysed using an analytical framework based on seven needs of meaning identified by Baumeister (purpose, values, efficacy, self-worth) and Derkx (coherence, excitement, connectedness). The study demonstrates that isolated older adults may find anchors for meaning in life, although not all needs for meaning are satisfied, and there can also be tension between different needs. The needs-based model provides concrete distinctions for enabling care-givers to recognise elements of meaning.

Oldest-old (age 80+) spousal care-givers of people with dementia experience unique challenges and concerns that they attribute to age and/or ageing, including difficulties providing care because of physical, cognitive or sensory decline; having fewer friends who can provide practical support; and having less energy for non-care-giving activities (e.g. leisure activities, self-care). Previous research on how older care-givers manage is not specific to oldest-old care-givers and may underrepresent their unique experiences managing age and ageing-related challenges. A limited understanding can compromise our ability to tailor services to ageing care-givers. The purpose of this research was to illuminate how oldest-old spousal care-givers of people with dementia manage ageing-related care-giving challenges and the barriers and facilitators to strategy use. The selective optimisation with compensation theory and the transactional theory of stress and coping informed our conceptualisation of management strategies. We used a narrative gerontology approach, with two or three semi-structured interviews with 11 care-givers aged 80–89 (25 interviews in total). Narrative data were analysed thematically. We identified four main themes that encompassed the strategies shared by care-givers: adjusting goals to lessen care-giving demands and to mitigate stress, using alternative means to reach goals and to mitigate stress, enhancing capacities to care and mitigate stress through engagement in non-care-giving activities, and choosing positive attitudes and perspectives to lessen emotional distress. We identified a myriad of facilitators and barriers to strategy utilisation in each theme. The study provides unique insight into care-givers' management strategies, especially in relation to relocation of self and spouse and participation in non-care-giving activities, as well as insight into age-related facilitators and barriers. This research can ultimately help inform the tailoring of age-sensitive health and social care services to meet the needs of this group of care-givers as they age.

Civic engagement is increasingly relevant for healthy and active ageing and addressing social exclusion among older people. Current research focuses primarily on formal volunteering, overlooking other ways older people contribute to their families and communities. This study addresses these gaps by recognising civic engagement as multi-dimensional – including associational engagement, informal care-giving, formal volunteering, digital engagement and formal/informal political engagement – and exploring activity combinations among older individuals. Using data from the 2016 European Quality of Life Survey (33 European countries), it examines the civic engagement of 9,031 individuals aged 65+. Descriptive analysis maps their multi-dimensional civic engagement, while latent class analysis identifies distinct engagement profiles and explores which activities are combined. It also investigates the socio-structural and social capital resources associated with each profile. Findings reveal that 32 per cent of older individuals are not engaged in civic activities. Among the civically engaged, five profiles emerge, illustrating varied engagement across multiple activities. Many older people (35.8 per cent) combine several civic activities, albeit in different combinations. Informal care-giving can be found in all profiles; and for a large part of the population, it is their only civic activity, while another profile displays older Europeans engaged in several activities simultaneously. Higher levels of socio-structural resources are associated with greater diversity in civic engagement in later life. Interventions and policies therefore must consider the diverse circumstances and preferences of older people and valorise and include all forms of multi-dimensional civic engagement, including informal care-giving, in policy making.

Public health crises like Covid-19 profoundly influence informal care-givers of older adults with functional health limitations. This study deepens existing understanding of care-giving processes during the pandemic to uncover insights useful for developing effective care-giving interventions for the post-pandemic era and future public health crises. Specifically, it examined (1) how care-giving activities during the pandemic impacted care-giver psychological wellbeing by affecting caregiving burden and the positive aspects of caregiving and (2) the moderating effect of pandemic-specific factors (i.e., care recipients’ unmet health-care needs due to the pandemic). Multiple-group analyses were conducted on data on 906 informal care-givers of older adults with functional health limitations, obtained from the Covid-19 Supplement and Round 10 Survey of the National Health and Aging Trends Study conducted in the United States. The mean age of participants was approximately 60 years, and most were white women. Positive aspects of care-giving significantly mediated the relationships between providing assistance in activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental ADL, and emotional support and positive affect. Care-giving burden significantly mediated the relationship between assistance in ADL and positive and negative affect. Care recipients’ unmet health-care needs moderated the relationships between assistance in ADL and burden, assistance in ADL and negative affect, and emotional support and positive affect. In sum, this study underscores the positive aspects of care-giving as well as care-giving burden and demonstrates that greater attention should be paid to care-givers caring for individuals with unmet health-care needs during public health crises. The results suggest that more-effective responses to public health crises must be developed, especially within health-care systems.

The older population is increasing. As age increases, many changes occur in individuals’ lives, physically, socially, psychologically, and this situation varies from individual to individual. The uncertainty about how this period will pass can cause anxiety in individuals. Therefore, valid and reliable tools are needed to investigate ageing anxiety and potential factors that increase this anxiety, especially in the ageing population. This article presents the results of a Turkish validity and reliability study of the Aging Anxiety Scale for Middle-Aged Adults. The study sample consisted of 293 middle-aged adults. Content validity, face validity and construct validity methods were applied to measure validity. Item analysis, Cronbach’s alpha and test-retest methods were used to measure internal consistency in the reliability analysis. The content validity index of the Aging Anxiety Scale for Middle-Aged Adults was found to be 0.97 based on expert opinion. Model fit indices were calculated as χ2 = 473.583, df = 275, χ2/df = 1.722, CFI = 0.95, GFI = 0.89, IFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.05, RMR = 0.06 and SRMR = 0.05. The analysis results indicated that the scale model values were within accepted limits and that the 5-sub-factor and 26-item structure of the scale was confirmed. It was concluded that the Turkish version of the Aging Anxiety Scale for Middle-Aged Adults was a valid and reliable measurement tool to enable Turkish society to determine middle-aged individuals’ ageing concerns.

This study addresses a significant knowledge gap in the literature by examining the relationship between religious involvement and subjective wellbeing (SWB) among older adults in Taiwan, a cultural context that has been underrepresented in existing research, with a focus on gender and age differences. Using data collected in Taichung City in 2017 (N = 645), this study measured religious involvement through religious affiliation, religiosity and frequency of religious participation, and assessed SWB via life satisfaction and happiness. Findings revealed no significant association between religious involvement and life satisfaction. However, religious participation was positively correlated with happiness. Gender differences were observed: Buddhism and Taoism were positively associated with life satisfaction among males, whereas religiosity and religious participation were significantly related to life satisfaction and happiness among females. Age disparities were also found, with religiosity significantly relating to both life satisfaction and happiness in the old-old group (70–89 years) but not in the young-old group (60–69 years). These findings highlight the nuanced associations between religious involvement and SWB, emphasising the importance of considering gender and age variations in future research. Future studies should further explore the cultural contexts that shape these relationships and examine other potential mediating factors to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how religious involvement influences wellbeing across different demographic groups.

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.