Addressing issues around Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being, Goal 4: Quality Education and Goal 5: Gender Equality, the work we publish in this area – including on our Ageing and Gerontology, Children, Young People and Families and Education lists, and the Longitudinal and Life Course Studies journal - helps identify and address the challenges that come at different life stages and between different generations.
It explores issues around health at different stages of life, demographics, intergenerationality, the challenges in education and the need for equal participation at all stages of the lifecourse.
Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In Life stages and intergenerationality, we aim to address the following goals:
Life Stages and Intergenerationality
You are looking at 1 - 10 of 2,973 items
This scoping review highlights the need for research to address the intersectional relationship between racialisation, health inequality and frailty in older age. We map research addressing the relationship between frailty and ethnicity across literature exploring health inequality in order to collate findings, identify trends and highlight research gaps. Our most significant finding is the absence of attention to the role of racism despite the majority of studies identifying a positive correlation between frailty and minority ethnicity. In countries with ageing populations, ill health and frailty was generally found to strike earlier and more severely in racially minoritised groups. However, there is a paucity of research addressing ageing and ethnicity. To focus the review, we asked: how are frailty and ethnicity/race related in the current literature addressing health inequality? We map the existing literature, commenting on terminology, findings and methodology. While social, economic and cultural factors are speculated to be explanations for inequality, there has been little analysis of the association between frailty, ethnicity and socioeconomic inequality, no explicit attention to the role of racism and little qualitative research to explore the lived experience of frailty and ethnicity. Despite the contested nature of both frailty and ethnicity, the majority of studies lacked definitions of the terms used, particularly with respect to ‘identifying terms’ used for ethnicity. We call for further research (particularly qualitative research) to address frailty and ethnicity in the context of racialisation and health inequality and for critical engagement with ‘identifying terms’ used.
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the commitment to honour parents and keep private ‘issues’ within the home combine to shape caregiving styles and needs. Evidence on the effectiveness of interventions for informal caregivers for people living with dementia in the MENA region is lacking. This study offers an overview of interventions for caregivers. It also explores informal caregivers’ needs, preferences and views on addressing intervention through online content. A middle-range programme theory is developed to provide insight into the mechanisms underpinning the interventions.
A realist review approach was used to explore what intervention types and features support the informal caregivers of people living with dementia throughout the MENA region and to examine in which contexts and how these interventions worked. The realist synthesis included 23 articles and eight interviews with health professionals. Eight context–mechanism–outcome configurations (CMOCs) were extrapolated to build and iteratively refine a middle-range programme theory and finalise it for testing. Contextual conditions that emerged include stigma, long care duration, culture, lack of support and the effect of this on intervention uptake. Mechanisms reported include feeling supported and empowering caregivers with the skills, knowledge and support they need, which led to outcomes such as improved quality of life for people living with dementia and caregivers and reduction in stress for caregivers.
This article contributes to the limited literature by addressing an identified gap in knowledge, providing insights into informal caregivers of people living with dementia in the MENA region to understand why particular interventions work or not, and in what contexts.
Introduction:
Mexico faces unique challenges due to the confluence of population ageing, an increasing burden of chronic conditions and limited resources to address these concerns. Substantial evidence links both independent and co-occurring chronic conditions to the risk of cognitive decline, but the association between common multimorbidity patterns and change in cognitive function has not been examined among older adults in Mexico.
Objective:
The objective of our research was to identify the most common multimorbidity patterns among ageing Mexican adults in 2012, then examine the association between these multimorbidity patterns and change in cognitive function with advancing age.
Methodology:
Data from the Mexican Health and Aging Study (2012–21; n = 6,082) was used to identify multimorbidity patterns in 2012 (including hypertension, diabetes, cancer, lung disease, heart attack, stroke, arthritis and depressive symptoms), then latent growth modelling was used to examine associations between the mean cognitive trajectory and the baseline multimorbidity patterns.
Results:
Several baseline multimorbidity patterns were associated with variation in cognitive function. Diabetes and depressive symptoms were present in the majority of multimorbidity patterns associated with lower cognitive function at baseline, and respondents with either lone diabetes or hypertension+diabetes+arthritis at baseline experienced more rapid cognitive decline than those reporting no conditions at baseline.
Conclusion:
Our findings suggest that prevention and management of diabetes may reduce cognitive gaps that manifest prior to older adulthood and protect against rapid cognitive decline among older Mexican adults. Further examination of depressive symptoms as a component of multimorbidity and cognitive change is also warranted.
Institutionalisation marks a significant transition for older adults, often accompanied by a multitude of challenges encompassing ageing, uncertainty and social dynamics. This qualitative study delves into the lived experiences of institutional older adults, focusing on the intricate interplay between ageing processes, the formation and maintenance of social bonds and the negotiation of ambiguity within institutional settings. Prior to moving into an old-age home, many older adults rely on long-established social networks. However, institutionalisation often disrupts these networks, creating a need for older adults to form new connections within the facility. Through in-depth interviews and thematic analysis, the research elucidates the multifaceted nature of ageing experiences, revealing how older adults navigate the passage of time amid shifting social landscapes and ambiguous circumstances. Findings underscore the centrality of social capital in buffering the effects of uncertainty and fostering resilience among institutional older adults. The themes that emerge highlight the importance of social connections in providing emotional support, practical assistance and a sense of belonging, which serve as critical resources in adapting to institutional life. Moreover, the study illuminates the ways in which older adults actively engage in sense-making processes, renegotiating identities and priorities in light of institutionalisation. By examining these experiences, this research contributes to a nuanced understanding of ageing in institutional contexts, emphasising the significance of social relationships in promoting wellbeing and adjustment. Insights gleaned from this study have implications for the development of interventions aimed at enhancing social support networks and fostering a supportive environment conducive to the holistic needs of institutional older adults.
Loneliness is a growing public health concern among the ageing population. Increasingly, scholars have recognised that even married and partnered persons experience loneliness and that loneliness is associated with the health and wellbeing of both partners. Prior research has linked individual loneliness with impaired kidney functioning, but to date no study has explored dyadic associations of both one’s own and a partner’s loneliness with biological measures of kidney function. This study uses dyadic data from the 2015 wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE; n = 10,139 individuals from 5,290 couples) to examine associations of both partners’ loneliness with Cystatin C, a blood-based biomarker of kidney function, in a large sample of midlife and older couples in Europe. Multilevel models analysed dyadic data, wherein individuals were nested within couples. Results indicated that both individuals’ own reports of loneliness and their partners’ reports of loneliness were uniquely associated with higher Cystatin C levels. This extends prior research on dyadic loneliness and cardiovascular biomeasures, suggesting Cystatin C may be a physiological pathway for long-term health effects of loneliness – for oneself and a partner. These findings suggest that both being lonely and having a lonely partner may be risk factors for poorer kidney function, which could have implications for the overall health of both partners. We discuss implications of these findings for theory and future research and suggest Cystatin C as a potential biological pathway for harmful effects of dyadic loneliness on health among ageing couples.
This develops the role of the economist as barrister, as a storyteller. Different economists should present different views of the world and engage in healthy debate. At any time, there is an inheritance of physical and human capital, along with social capital. This defines the boundaries of what can be done. Instead of making hard decisions over allocating those resources, policy makers have tended to congratulate themselves for policies that postponed the reckoning. This includes monetary policy that always found reasons to keep interest rates low, and pandemic policies that were debt-funded and hugely wasteful. More importantly, those policies have left us not only with extremely high national debt, but with a social and cultural gap facing the ‘pandemic generation’.
An overlooked feature of monetary policy over the last decades is not just that interest rates became low, but that they were consistently declining. Since asset prices are proportionate to the cost of financing (a low interest rate raises asset prices), this made investing a one-way bet. Take housing as an example – the constantly falling interest rate meant that house prices were constantly being bid up. We argue that interest rates should remain at the current 5% (a historically normal rate) to keep asset prices in check. The monetary and fiscal authorities should use policies to raise inflation to bring asset prices back into alignment with wages and goods prices.
Generation Z has grown up with a global financial crisis, a pandemic, the climate emergency, growing autocracy and wars. Survival, not just equity, is at stake.
As debate rages about how to ensure a fairer and sustainable society, this book challenges short-sighted economic policies, asking where we want to be in 20 years’ time and how we might get there.
Offering fresh, and sometimes counter intuitive, thinking on a range of economic issues including monetary policy, housing and university funding, it argues in favour of policy guardrails to protect the future, higher interest rates, and a burst of inflation. Robots and AI should be seen as positive replacements for population growth.
This is an original, readable and entertaining take on how we can change course before it is too late.
The low and decreasing interest rates of the last few decades have led to a consumption boom. We distinguish between the discount rate (how future consumption is weighted against consumption today) and the interest rate. For given preferences for consumption over time, a low interest rate can cause borrowing against the future. The fact that the US and UK money supply has exploded suggests that policy was causing the low interest rates – rather than a hypothetical ‘global savings glut’ or ‘secular stagnation’. We consider how inflation can be an imperfect ‘canary in the mine’ and the extraordinarily high money supply is an inflation accident waiting to happen. While the central banks can use their policy tool of paying interest on financial institution deposits with them, this is extremely costly to them, with the deficit being made up by more government borrowing.
In recent decades, wages have been relatively stagnant, while asset prices have exploded. Monetary policy was ‘run hot’ in part to support the labour market. Other policies, however, support the gig economy and the decline in unions, thereby lowering bargaining power of workers and, consequently, their wages. We argue in favour of the ‘long-term relationship’ model for the workplace. For government support, high-quality universal services in health and in education are the best way to achieve equity and support the least well-off. We argue against working tax credits and other subsidies to poorly paid jobs.