Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-09-07DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101263
Ágnes Szabó , Christine Stephens , Mary Breheny
{"title":"The life course effects of socioeconomic status on later life loneliness: The role of gender and ethnicity","authors":"Ágnes Szabó , Christine Stephens , Mary Breheny","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101263","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101263","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Precursors of loneliness include individual risk factors and experiences of social exclusion. Using the New Zealand Health Work and Retirement Life Course History Study, we investigated the impact of unequal access to material resources across the life course (from age 10 to present) on late life emotional and social loneliness and the moderating effects of gender and Māori ethnicity (indigenous population of Aotearoa/New Zealand) in 613 adults aged 65 to 81 years. Childhood and adult life socioeconomic status (SES) negatively predicted late life emotional and social loneliness, but their effects disappeared after controlling for late life SES, suggesting a mediation effect. Education was also a significant predictor; however, it exerted different effects on social (positive) and emotional (negative) loneliness. Education's effect was moderated by gender, indicating a protective effect for emotional and an exacerbating effect for social loneliness in men. These findings suggest that lifelong exclusion from material resources is a risk factor for late life loneliness.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101263"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890406524000586/pdfft?md5=f8c46eb7b4d04b58197863914d8063f4&pid=1-s2.0-S0890406524000586-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142150005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-11-05DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101286
Yaqi Yuan , Shun Yuan Yeo , Kristen Schultz Lee
{"title":"Social engagement among older women in Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic","authors":"Yaqi Yuan , Shun Yuan Yeo , Kristen Schultz Lee","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101286","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101286","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of people across the globe. Previous studies on the impact of the pandemic in North American contexts have shown that older adults are particularly vulnerable when facing the challenges brought by the pandemic. However, little is known about older women's experiences during the pandemic explicitly. Even less is known about the Asian contexts which are characterized by different beliefs about family, social solidarity, and the role of the government. How did older Singaporean women navigate the restrictions set by the government during the pandemic and what variations in social engagement were observed? To answer these questions<strong>,</strong> we analyze two rounds of in-depth interviews with 40 Singaporean older women aged 55 and above using a modified grounded theory approach. We identify three patterns of social engagement: decreased and weakened, intensified, and continuity. It was generally those who reported strong networks who either maintained or further intensified their social engagements. As for the sources of social connection, respondents drew primarily on family, but also on friends and other community resources, in seeking social engagement during the pandemic. The findings from our study uncover the variety of ways in which older Singaporean women responded to the constraints imposed on social engagement in the context of a pandemic, and the connections between social resources and social engagement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101286"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142586019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-11-09DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101285
Kristina Chelberg , Linda Steele
{"title":"Hidden in plain sight: Women and gendered dementia dynamics in the Australian Aged Care Royal Commission","authors":"Kristina Chelberg , Linda Steele","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101285","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101285","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Dementia is known to unequally affect women, whether as women living with dementia, or women who provide unwaged or paid care, yet dementia and long-term care (‘LTC’) research and policy often ignore gender. Using Australia as a case study and building on critical dementia, critical disability, and feminist scholarship, this discourse analysis study explored representations in the Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (‘ACRC’) Final Report of experiences of women with dementia, and women care partners of people with dementia, using long-term care. This paper argues gender remained an overlooked topic in relation to dementia in the ACRC Final Report. This paper found women and dementia were co-constructed according to normative gendered scripts of passive femininity. In particular, harms experienced by women with dementia in long-term care were overlooked, while the feminised labour of women care partners was taken for granted. In failing to address normative gendered patterns, the ACRC Final Report entrenches rather than unseats marginalisation of women in dementia research and policy and is a missed opportunity to address gendered labour, discrimination and harms in long-term care. Ultimately, the paper highlights the need to recognise long-term care as a key site for critical dementia and feminist scholarly and activist interventions and intersectional approaches in reforms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101285"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-11-07DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101281
Christian Maravelias
{"title":"“Aging well” in knowledge-intensive service professions in Sweden – The idealization of youth in neoliberal labor markets","authors":"Christian Maravelias","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101281","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101281","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Governments need individuals to be willing and able to work as they age. Yet, studies of older individuals' employability report that labor markets become more rather than less restrictive when it comes to employing older people. The Swedish labor market is a case in point. Recent surveys and governmental reports show that job seekers' employability begins to decrease when they are in their 40s. Through interviews with jobseekers, employer representatives, and human resources and recruitment specialists, the paper examines the employability of older individuals in Sweden. It focuses on knowledge-intensive service occupations, where seniority and age may be considered strengths rather than mere liabilities. It shows that individuals who are proactive about their professional development and strive to ‘age well’ are still excluded from recruitment processes because of their age. Yet, they are not excluded due to ageism in the form of negative prejudice against older job seekers. Rather, they are excluded because employers and recruiters perceive them as being too focused on professional development and lacking the naïve, ‘just-do-it’ mentality of younger job seekers. Furthermore, their professionalism and experience are viewed as factors that make them stand out as potential threats to the managerial hierarchy. Using a governmentality lens, the study contributes to critical research on the intersection of successful aging and employability discourses by addressing a question this research raises but has left unanswered: why are younger job seekers sometimes preferred over older ones, even when employers know they are less skilled, less experienced, and not as proactive or eager to develop professionally? The analysis reveals a rift in the ableism reinforced by the neoliberal discourses on successful aging and employability. While they explicitly emphasize self-governance and proactivity, they implicitly build on individuals' subjection to hierarchical control. The older job seekers match the explicit precepts of the neoliberal discourses yet are excluded because they fail to match the implicit ones. The analysis, therefore, suggests that age is the factor revealing this divide within neoliberal governmentality.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101281"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-09-12DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101269
Lorena P. Gallardo-Peralta , Emilie Raymond , Herminia Gonzálvez Torralbo , Victoria Carrasco-Pavez
{"title":"Social relations among older gay men and trans women in Chile: Diverse, intimate, functional and reciprocal networks","authors":"Lorena P. Gallardo-Peralta , Emilie Raymond , Herminia Gonzálvez Torralbo , Victoria Carrasco-Pavez","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101269","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101269","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although <strong>LGTBIQ+</strong> groups have experienced social transformations towards greater levels of respect and public presence in Chile in recent decades, the life trajectories of older people remain marginal in studies and surveys regarding sexual and gender diversity. In a society where homophobia is a current and oppressive attitude despite important advances, it is essential to examine the experiences of older LGBTIQ+ people, especially because they are vulnerable to dual discrimination in old age owing to a combination of homophobia and ageism. This study involved an analysis of social ties based on the Convoy Model, to understand how different life courses have influenced the structuring of social networks in old age among gay men and trans women in Chile. Framed within the context of broader research into four axes of diversity in ageing, this study reports the results of thirteen biographies of older people (ten gay men and three trans women). In-depth interviews were conducted using a biographical approach in which the social links that accompany the life course are deepened. A thematic analysis strategy was applied and the interview data were processed through NVivo. The findings show three concentric circles surrounding the participants: closest (made up of partner, immediate family and chosen family), closer (made up biological and extended family) and close (made up of peers and neighbours). The older people are integrated into social networks with diverse compositions, share closeness and intimacy, receive emotional, informational and instrumental social support, and are active providers of reciprocal support. However, the study notes certain risk factors, such as the difficulty of cohabiting and maintaining relationships with a partner. Participants living alone reported fearing an absence of instrumental support during more advanced stages of the ageing process.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101269"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142173691","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-11-19DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101288
Taochen Zhou
{"title":"How do we understand ‘age’ and ‘aging’? Cultural constructions of the ‘aging’ experience in British English and Chinese from a linguistic perspective","authors":"Taochen Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101288","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101288","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the cognitive constructions surrounding the aging experience in British English and Mandarin Chinese. The study employs corpus data to explore how fixed phrases manifest the perceptions of ‘age’, ‘aging’, and by extension ‘old age’. It lays out the linguistic patterns that are common in each language. By analyzing the similarities and differences, the findings show that the same biological phenomenon is not expressed in the same linguistic patterns consistently across languages, and that culture plays an important role in structuring conceptual preferences. Most distinctively, ‘age’ in Chinese can be a separate entity with an upward-oriented path on the aging JOURNEY which is unfound in English. This study sheds light on the associations between language, thought and culture to foster sensitive communication under the background that aging perceptions may have an impact on older adults' general wellbeing and health behavior.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101288"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142702650","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-11-18DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101287
Sarah McGann , Holly Farley , Caroline Bulsara , Anahita Sal Moslehian
{"title":"Socio-spatial analysis of Australian residential care facilities: A case study of traditional, medium, and small household models","authors":"Sarah McGann , Holly Farley , Caroline Bulsara , Anahita Sal Moslehian","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101287","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101287","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While it is imperative to develop building design innovation to adapt to new care models and organisational processes in residential care facilities, there is a lack of research evidence on the interplay between design and resident lived experience, particularly when examined through a building design lens. This study aims to explore the building design factors that contribute to residents' quality of life (QoL), and thus, their ability to find <em>home</em>. The research objectives are to: 1) document and analyse the layout and spatial design of three different typologies (Traditional, Medium, and Small Household models) against key QoL themes and the residents' everyday lived use and sense of feeling at <em>home</em>; and 2) compare the architectural, layout, and lived use of the three typologies through a socio-spatial lens. Employing a mixed methods approach, incorporating architectural and ethnographic research strategies, we identified six key design concepts encompassing 14 factors that might be related to residents' quality of life. The research highlights distinct everyday lived use and spatial adaptation among the three building typologies, with the Small Household case study standing out for providing an excellent holistic setting, resulting in high levels of observed QoL. This paper also suggests practical insights into improving building design briefs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101287"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142702649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-10-10DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101275
Jenny Paananen , Jenni Kulmala , Jari Pirhonen
{"title":"Social death of older adults residing in nursing homes in Finland","authors":"Jenny Paananen , Jenni Kulmala , Jari Pirhonen","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101275","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101275","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social death refers to situations in which individuals become socially excluded from social interaction or are considered socially insignificant. Social death is about losing roles, relationships, and eventually identity in the eyes of others. When becoming a permanent resident in a nursing home, older adults face an increased risk of social death. However, empirical research on social death and its manifestations in nursing homes is still scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate the phenomenon of social death by interviewing family members (<em>N</em> = 19) of older people living in nursing homes in Finland. A theory-driven thematic analysis of family members' interviews revealed two cross-cutting themes that were linked to social death in nursing homes. We discovered that 1) the transition to a nursing home significantly narrowed the older adults' social environment and 2) dementia seemed to affect all aspects of older adults' social life and social agency negatively. Furthermore, four main mechanisms of social death in nursing homes were 1) losses associated with decline of physical and mental health, 2) loss of social identity, 3) isolation and lack of social connectedness, and 4) lack of quality of care. It seems that nursing home residents, especially those with advanced dementia, face social death because they are not seen as persons who are entitled to social roles and meaningful activities. Thus, there is an urgent need to improve the social connectedness of all older adults living in care facilities, with particular attention to those with memory loss. Based on these results, we provide checklists for nursing professionals and all citizens to restore the social value of older persons.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101275"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142422097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-10-22DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101278
Deborah Lupton
{"title":"Towards a gerontology of everything: A more-than-human perspective","authors":"Deborah Lupton","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101278","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101278","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Engaging with the special issue's theme of ‘The growing older of humans, non-humans and more-than-humans’, this commentary provides an overview of how social theory has engaged with the ageing body. Beginning with discussion of initial scholarship in the sociology of the body, the commentary provides thoughts on how more-than-human theory, both ‘old’ and ‘new’ materialisms, can contribute to a deeper understanding of how human bodies age alongside nonhuman living things, situated in place and space. This approach acknowledges the distributed forces, agencies and capacities that are generated with and through the relational encounters of humans with nonhuman agents as they move through the life course. The commentary ends with some suggestions for incorporating a ‘gerontology of everything’ perspective into ageing studies as a step towards more-than-human mutual flourishing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101278"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142531228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Journal of Aging StudiesPub Date : 2024-12-01Epub Date: 2024-08-28DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101255
B. Schuurman , W.P. Achterberg , T.A. Abma , J. Lindenberg
{"title":"On the limits of communication: The liminal positioning of older adults and processes of self-ageism and ageism.","authors":"B. Schuurman , W.P. Achterberg , T.A. Abma , J. Lindenberg","doi":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101255","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaging.2024.101255","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Our qualitative study, consisting of in-depth semi-structured interviews with recent retirees in the Dutch city of Leiden, set out to investigate how communication, through processes of self-identification and the negotiation of social identities, relates to (self-)ageism. A letter from the city administration was used to make age identification salient in our research and prompted stories of various liminal spaces and phases that our participants experienced. Whilst liminal phases are usually considered uncertain and ambiguous, in our study we found that for older people liminality can offer a desired ambiguity that allowed them to adopt a more positive identity than ‘being old’, which was rejected as undesirable. Our findings provide insight into the intertwinement of societal, institutional and individual levels of ageism and highlights the necessity of finding and emphasising positive values in being old, since only then positive interpretations of communication can enable processes of positive societal identification.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47935,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Aging Studies","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101255"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890406524000501/pdfft?md5=751d10b7d8d7f4a3311a26fcef5a6bbb&pid=1-s2.0-S0890406524000501-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142087489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}