SDG 5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Browse books and journal articles relating to this SDG below and find out more on the UN Sustainable Development Goals website.
Goal 5: Gender Equality
In addressing age discrimination, a major driver of exclusion in later life, Astrid Stuckelberger, Dominic Abrams and Philippe Chastonay examine steps being taken in Europe and through the United Nations to create a ‘society for all ages’. The chapter reviews core processes of discrimination and exclusion based on old age, such as ageism, stigmatisation and stereotyping, and moves on to highlight the extent to which European citizens perceive ageism and age discrimination to be problematic. In terms of legislative responses to age discrimination, the EU has led the way internationally in outlawing different forms of discrimination in the workplace. However, loopholes in the legislative framework need to be filled if the risks of employment-related exclusion are to be minimised. Moreover, despite a range of UN initiatives in recent years, the authors suggest that relatively little progress has been made. As a result, many older people around the world are continuing to experience disadvantage.
Having adequate material resources is central to the well-being of people in both developing and industrialised nations. In western industrialised nations, lack of income and an inability to afford the types of goods and services that most people in a society have access to or to participate in social activities that are taken for granted typically figure strongly in attempts to operationalise the concept of social exclusion. Drawing on empirical data from EU nations, Asghar Zaidi not only highlights the degree to which older people across Europe are prone to the risk of income poverty, but also examines their capacity to afford key items of expenditure. The chapter shows the substantial variation that exists across European nations in relation to older people’s access to material resources, and in particular the extent to which cross-national differences exist arising from the measurement approach adopted.
Evidence of widening inequalities in later life raises concerns about the ways in which older adults might experience forms of social exclusion. Such concerns are evident in all societies as they seek to come to terms with the unprecedented ageing of their populations. Taking a broad international perspective, this highly topical book casts light on patterns and processes that either place groups of older adults at risk of exclusion or are conducive to their inclusion.
Leading international experts challenge traditional understandings of exclusion in relation to ageing in From Exclusion to Inclusion in Old Age. They also present new evidence of the interplay between social institutions, policy processes, personal resources and the contexts within which ageing individuals live to show how this shapes inclusion or exclusion in later life. Dealing with topics such as globalisation, age discrimination and human rights, intergenerational relationships, poverty, and migration, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in ageing issues.
Set within the context of the global economic recession initiated by the collapse of major international financial institutions in 2008, Chris Phillipson assesses the ways in which processes arising from globalisation are transforming later life. Despite the fact that population ageing has frequently been constructed as a global problem and issue, the chapter argues that the on-going reduction of expenditure on public programmes increasingly acts to transfer risks to individual older people and their families. This process creates new and distinctive forms of inequality. The chapter examines competing trends in the exclusion debate in light of such global developments, and considers four potential approaches to challenging exclusion. This involves, firstly, maintaining a framework for supportive ties within and between generations; secondly, promoting understanding of the value of public services; thirdly, securing ‘protected social spaces’ to support vulnerable and marginal groups; and, fourthly, promoting a rights-based approach to development in later life.
In Asia-Pacific societies, demographic change and rapid socio-economic development have been linked to a generalised decline in close family relationships, and especially the reciprocal family responsibilities known as filial piety. David Phillips and Kevin Cheng focus on population ageing on the one hand and on value systems, social norms and traditions within filial piety on the other. The chapter shows how traditional values are changing in the Asia-Pacific region and the degree to which such changes vary across societies, posing new risks of exclusion for some older people. In some settings, changing interpretations of filial piety have led to a growing acceptance that personal care no longer needs to be provided solely by family members, and that filial contributions can also be fulfilled by providing cash or access to services provided by non-kin. Elsewhere, quality of institutional care provision has become a key indicator of children’s enduring filial commitment to ageing parents.
Relating closely to globalisation trends, the context for the chapter by Sandra Torres is the interconnection between international migration flows and the ways in which such migration is changing the demographics of ageing populations across the world and societies’ ethnic composition. In examining contrasting approaches to exploring exclusion issues by social gerontologists and researchers who focus on international migration and ethnic relations, the chapter argues that the diversity of older migrants poses a challenge to social gerontology’s theoretical, policy- and practice-oriented assumptions regarding who migrants are and what they need. While the ‘migratory life-course’ is associated with specific exclusionary risks, the mechanisms of social exclusion work differently according to when, why and where older migrants to western industrialised nations have come from. An ethnicity and race-aware take on social exclusion is shown to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions that well-designed policies and practices can reduce exclusion in later life.
In a concluding chapter, Norah Keating and Thomas Scharf synthesise the key arguments raised by contributing authors to the book. They also identify a number of cross-cutting issues that merit closer reflection by researchers. In a forward-looking piece, the authors highlight a number of challenges that lie ahead in relation to the risks of exclusion faced by ageing adults around the world. Responding to such challenges, with the goal of promoting greater inclusion in later life, should represent a goal for policy makers, practitioners and the research community.
In this introductory chapter, Thomas Scharf and Norah Keating identify the scope of the book and provide a synopsis of the chapters. They also introduce key arguments relating to the value of the linked concepts of social exclusion and inclusion as they pertain to ageing and older people. The authors review contrasting interpretations of exclusion and inclusion in order to understand better the circumstances under which groups of older adults may be at risk of exclusion from societal resources. The chapter aims to provide a conceptual orientation point for subsequent chapters. While contributing authors use their own interpretations of the concepts of social inclusion and exclusion, they are consistent in regarding the concepts in terms of their multi-dimensionality, relativity and dynamism. Authors are also consistent in recognising the potential of a deepened understanding of inclusion and exclusion to inform both longstanding and emerging debates on the key challenges associated with population ageing in different national and regional contexts.
In this chapter, Jim Ogg and Sylvie Renaut explore debates around older people’s involvement in multi-generational family relationships. Given that families have consistently been shown to provide the major context for the mitigation of social exclusion risks, the chapter’s focus is on contemporary features of family relationships in European societies. Adopting an intergenerational perspective, the authors make the case that population ageing has not resulted in the weakening of family ties but signifies a changing balance between older and younger people in society. The chapter’s conceptual framework reflects four key themes: the notion of intergenerational solidarity is viewed alongside the related ideas of intergenerational conflict and ambivalence; the changing dynamics in societies’ acknowledgement and support for old age as a period of the life course; the need for social inclusion as a basis for ‘a society for all ages’; and the value of fostering intergenerational family policies.
With social exclusion debates originating in western industrialised nations, there have been few attempts, to date, to extend the exclusion lens to the situation of older people in developing nations. In this chapter, Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, Armando Barrientos and Julia Mase contribute to emerging debates about exclusion in non-western nations by examining older people’s circumstances in the middle-income countries of Brazil and South Africa. Framing their analysis within the context of Cowgill’s (1976) study on development and modernisation and the consequences for older people, the authors use original empirical data to provide a more subtle perspective on such general claims. While access to financial security and pensions provides insights into the material resources domain of social exclusion, older people’s perceptions of inclusion and the quality of their social relationships address its relational dimensions. The chapter emphasises the key contribution of material resources to older people’s social relations and subjective well-being in developing countries.
