The latest thinking in the studying of ageing and older people

As in previous years, the British Society of Gerontology’s annual conference offered a veritable cornucopia of research on our ageing population that would be impossible to comprehensively summarise in one short blog.  

This is not therefore a summary of everything that was presented. Instead, it is an outline of select research presented at the conference that has clear links to developing policy for older people in our changing society. 

Given our work on combatting ageism, Professor Cathrine Degnan’s opening plenary struck a chord. She talked about “generationalism” being a key part of ageism that results in older people being grouped together as all the same, stripping out the complexity that arises through age and the intersection of other characteristics. Prof Degnan said that older people are often viewed as “out of time” both in terms of being “stuck in the past” and not having much life left.  

But the fact is that older and younger people exist in the same, shared time. Prof Degnan also invoked a glorious image, first conjured up by Tim Ingold, in which generations are thought of as the fibres in a rope, wrapping around one another along their length rather than the more common image of a stack of cards layered one on top of the other.   

Relevant to our work on age-friendly employment was research showing that ageism, both structural and internalised, continues to shape older workers’ experiences in the workplace and the persistence of the narrative that older workers are taking jobs from younger, more deserving workers.  

Self-directed ageism is also apparent. Older adults who feel older than their age are less motivated to be full-time bridge employees (that is, switching from a career job to a different role as a step towards retirement) and less likely to participate in formal training as they struggle with increasing digitisation in the workplace.   

We’re also experiencing health pessimism, a sense of impending and inevitable deterioration in our health. This can act as both a facilitator and barrier to extending working lives in that older workers don’t want to miss the window for healthy retirement, but also understand that working can be a means to good physical and mental health. 

There is evidence of a new life stage being added to the traditional three-stage life course of education in youth, work in middle age and retirement in older age. Now we see growing numbers of people embarking on a second career phase post pension age, a time when the receipt of their pension eases the pressure of bread-winning, allowing them to customise their jobs with improved job satisfaction. This was one example of research that demonstrated a sense of agency among older people, and specifically baby boomers.  

Other research talked about older people with disability encountering significant barriers to social participation, including negative beliefs from family and friends. Nevertheless, they were characterised by a determination that health-related criteria would not define what ageing well means for them.  

The risks of a top-down approach to research and policy that fails to involve older people was a clear message throughout. For example, we might think that equity release is a great way to finance home improvements, but research shows that many homeowners consider this an untrustworthy, undesirable solution that could put their accumulated capital, and that of their heirs, at risk.  

Another example is how regeneration of neighbourhoods can compound the social isolation of older people by disrupting social networks. But if older people are involved in the regeneration process, and thought is given to their experiences during, and not just after regeneration, many of the negative effects can be avoided. 

While these examples highlight the need to develop solutions with, not for older people, it was also clear that facilitating the participation in research of communities who experience exclusion takes time and that funding and delivery timescales must allow for this. 

Unsurprisingly, given the conference title, life course effects, and how each stage of life impacts the next, were apparent everywhere. Housing, living situation and work in later stages of life are shaped by life stories that include financial constraints and major life events such as job loss and loss of loved ones.  

Some life course effects highlighted were negative (such as the impact of racism on social disadvantage and the long-term impact of caring on health and finances) and some positive (such as the transnational ageing of older Italians in Newcastle who maintained links to Italy). Even bridge employment is subject to experiences earlier in the life course, with the privileged working for meaning and to preserve health and those in more precarious situations having no choice but to work. 

We are seeing not only the effects of the life course on the experience of ageing and of later life, but, according to Professor Phyllis Moen in her plenary session, the progressive de-institutionalisation of the life course itself as we move away from the three-phase model.  

This means we need to develop opportunities for an integrated life course, in which leisure, work and education are overlapping and lifelong pursuits. And though policy has not yet caught up, in an optimistic note, Professor Moen sees this time of change and technological upheaval as an opportunity to advance the human condition. Let’s hope she’s right.