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This chapter identifies the area of decision-making as central to the protection of older people. It addresses the recognition of legal capacity as a central issue to avoid choices being ignored and not respected. The chapter discusses some of the law and policy reforms necessary to meet international human rights standards, as set out in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the European Convention on Human Rights. Lessons from research in other jurisdictions are highlighted to avoid the pitfalls identified from similar law reform elsewhere.

Social policy concerning older people is an area of increasing importance. This chapter reviews progress in the innovative approach to using policy to improve older people's lives: the Strategy for Older People in Wales. This broad, high-level policy development takes a holistic approach to older's lives and places a great emphasis on engaging older people in the democratic process. This chapter outlines and reviews the implementation of this new approach in addressing population ageing. It draws some comparisons with the strategies of the devolved governments of Northern Ireland and Scotland. The chapter concludes with some of the learning from the Strategy for Older People, highlights some of its limitations and considers how further evaluation may be best taken forward.

Positive mental health is a prerequisite for a good quality of life across the whole lifespan. It is an overarching concept, which intersects with a number of related concepts, psychological wellbeing, successful ageing and quality of life. Good mental health is increasingly understood as a combination of an individual’s personality, environment and lifecourse; it is also dynamic. Older people consider it to be characterised by: a sense of wellbeing, capacity to make and sustain relationships, ability to meet the challenges which later life brings, and ability to contribute both economically and socially. Mental health is viewed as equally important as physical health. Research identifies the core dimensions of mental health, and its sister concepts, as: resilience, remaining active and involved, having a purpose or role, being able to engage in social relationships, independence, keeping fit, having an adequate income, autonomy and self-efficacy. Survey evidence consistently shows that more than 85 per cent of older people have ‘good’ quality of life. One of the challenges of assessing and measuring quality of life, and related constructs, is capturing the intersection between the subjective and the objective. The promotion of mental health is increasingly recognised as a legitimate goal of social policy.

This chapter focuses on several key areas of poverty and social exclusion experienced by older people and pensioners using B-SEM. Analyses by pensioner household type (n=2,296) show differences in older adults’: access to material, economic and social resources; participation in common social activities and civic and political participation; and quality of life. Younger pensioners (particularly couples) are least likely to report lower resources and exclusion from participation, and more likely to report higher quality of life. In contrast, older and single (particularly female) pensioners are most likely to report lower levels of economic and social resources and lower scores on participation and quality of life sub-domains. Although the general position of pensioners has improved over the past decade, the findings conclude that this has not been the case for all pensioners. The policy situation explaining some of these disparities and the implications for further policy action are discussed.

Chapter 3 outlines the origins and development of older people’s interest groups. It outlines their evolution in Europe and the United States from the late nineteenth century and the changing nature of older people’s interest representation from the 1950s. The chapter also explores the topic of older people’s interest organisations and political influence and provides a summary of the literature exploring issues of membership and representation.

This chapter discusses research on quality of life in older age funded by the New Dynamics of Ageing Programme (NDA). Definitions of quality of life in the literature are presented, followed by older people’s own definitions and priorities, which were elicited in previous research funded by the Growing Older Programme (GO). This led to the development of The Older People’s QoL (OPQOL) questionnaire, which was fully tested in the NDA programme with three samples of older people.

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.

Despite much emphasis on mental illness in later life, limited work has focused on mental health. This book aims to address this deficit by exploring, and explaining, mental health outcomes in later life through the lens of critical social gerontology and via the conduit of life course analysis. It adopts an approach underpinned by a commitment to understanding, and making visible, the role of lifecourse, and age related inequalities in creating or amplifying risks to mental health, as well as exploring those issues that afford protection. It aims to offer a critical review of existing discourse and disrupt the ‘taken for granted’ paradigm, including in the dementia arena. This approach not only recognises that mental health in later life is a complex multi-dimensional issue that cuts across time, cohort, social categories and individual experiences but that it is affected by a wide range of lifecourse and age related issues. It also encourages the development of understanding that adopts a wide lens of analysis and of policy and service related responses that reduce risks to mental health during the lifecourse and in later life itself. Further, it engages with the potential to learn from older people’s perspectives and lives.

Chapter six focuses on older people. It reviews the changing discourses, identities and lifestyles that characterise this group, before examining the housing and support policies towards them in Britain and Sweden. This is followed by an evaluation of the supported housing options available in the two countries using the headings of ‘home’, ‘neighbourhood’ and ‘well-being’ to structure the available evidence.

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.

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.

This chapter establishes the key arguments for this book, locating the text amidst significant knowledge gaps concerning the intersection of ageing, social policy and austerity. The chapter proposes Ireland as a unique and valuable case-study for the analysis, presenting in brief some of the conflicting and contrasting patterns arising from growing older during a time of economic recession and austerity driven social policy. The chapter presents the book’s critical gerontology approach. It describes the context of austerity in Ireland, charting the nation’s transition from unprecedented economic growth, to severe economic recession to, perhaps again, economic recovery. The chapter positions Ireland, and its economic crisis, in the global political economy and provides a critical overview of the historical evolution of ageing-related social policy in Ireland. The chapter ends by outlining the structure of the book and the contributions from each of the authors.

This chapter explores the characteristics, activities and living arrangements of carers of older people in Australia and England, paying particular attention to those who are of working age. It notes the importance of trends towards living alone and independently among older people in both countries and the implications of these for their children of working age when care needs arise. The chapter presents data from censuses and surveys in each country which have collected data about people of working age who provide regular care to their older relatives. The data highlight the nature of the care given and of the tasks involved, the impact caring has on adult children’s participation in paid work, and the challenges and difficulties many carers face in reconciling work and care, an issue of particular importance for women, although growing numbers of men are also affected. Some of the difficulties carers face have been partially addressed in both countries through a range of new policies laws and strategic public policy commitments to extend and enhance support for carers, often under pressure from or influenced by the associations of carers which exist in both countries.

This chapter contextualises ageing in Ireland in a time of austerity. It describes the current demographic and socio-economic situation of older people in Ireland and recent changes therein; where relevant, it compares the situation in Ireland to that of other high income countries. The chapter goes on to examine the impact of the 2008 economic downturn on older people in Ireland. It examines the direct effects of austerity measures on the Irish welfare state as well as some indirect effects, including the impact of emigration and depopulation on older people.

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.

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.

The built environment, encompassing people's homes and the immediate neighbourhoods and communities that surround the home, represents an important context for older people's inclusion or exclusion. In this chapter, Atiya Mahmood and Norah Keating reflect on the centrality of place in the lives of older people. They conceptualise the built environment within the context of exclusion debates, focusing in particular on the ways in which the idea of 'ageing in place' is challenged by exclusion discourse. Several major policy and practice interventions that aim to enhance the built environment and thereby potentially reduce the risks of exclusion facing older people are reviewed. While universal design, visitability, and age-friendly city initiatives are judged to be valuable in addressing different dimensions of the physical environment, the chapter suggests that there is a role for research to review in more critical fashion the process and outcomes of such programmes.

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.