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This book examines absolute poverty in Europe, which is at the moment fairly neglected in academic and policy discourse. It opens with conceptual and methodological considerations that prepare the ground for an application of the concept of absolute poverty in the context of affluent societies and analyses shortcomings of social statistics as well as possibilities to include highly vulnerable groups. This includes thoughts on ethics of research in this particular field where people live under severe circumstances and research can make a difference. The book sheds light on crucial dimensions of deprivation and social exclusion of people in absolute poverty in affluent societies: access to health care, housing and nutrition, poverty related shame and violence. After conceptual and practical issues, the book investigates into different policy responses to absolute poverty in affluent societies from social policy concerns to civic organizations, e. g. food donations, and penalisation and “social cleansing” of highly visible poor. The book finally frames this discussion by profound ethical considerations and normative reasoning about absolute poverty and its alleviation, how it is related to concerns of justice/injustice as well as human dignity. Furthermore, it questions the power and importance of human rights and their judicial protection in regard of persons in absolute poverty.

The activation of social welfare recipients has been, and still is, a central issue in the development of social and employment policies in Europe. This book explores the employment effectiveness of minimum income schemes, and provides the first comprehensive examination of its dependency on how the rights and obligations of the recipients are defined. The book argues that the right to a minimum income can only be adequately justified with reference to the individual's right to personal development. Combining political theory and policy analysis, the author draws on evidence from eight different European countries to illustrate how it is possible to combine higher levels of employment effectiveness with the respect for recipients' right to personal development. The book explores the balance between fairness and effectiveness in the activation of minimum income recipients.

‘Active ageing’ has become a key phrase in discourses about challenges and remedies for demographic ageing and the enrolment of older adults into voluntary work is an important dimension of it. The pattern and factors conditioning volunteering among older people has so far been an under-researched topic in Europe and this is the first book to study volunteering among older people comparatively and comprehensively. In this topical book older people's volunteering is studied comparatively in eight European countries representing different kinds of welfare regimes, at the structural, macro, meso and micro levels. Overall it highlights how different interactions between the levels facilitate or hinder older people's inclusion in voluntary work and makes policy suggestions for an integrated strategy. This book provides important new insights for academics and students interested in ageing societies, active ageing and voluntary work. It will also be of great value for policy makers and practitioner in third sector, older volunteers and voluntary organisations.

This book challenges the underlying presupposition that regular employment is the royal road to inclusion. Drawing on original empirical research, it investigates the inclusionary and exclusionary potentials of different types of work, including activation programmes. This book makes an important contribution to the debates in this area by: reporting on original international comparative research; reflecting on and critically assessing current activating policies; evaluating the consequences of these policies, as well as challenging the premises they are based on; including the perspectives of service users in its analyses; and offering recommendations for the future design of activating policies.

While reforms of welfare policies have been widely analysed, the reform of welfare administration has received far less attention. Using empirical case studies, this book provides significant new insights into the way welfare administration is being internationally transformed. Particular attention is given to the effect on welfare clients, staff and agencies. This book presents a critical analysis of governance practices in welfare administration and examines shifts in the participants, practices and processes of welfare administration. It presents original empirical case studies that highlight the effects of reforming welfare governance on welfare subjects, staff and agencies and provides a much-needed international and comparative perspective of changing welfare governance. It is aimed at scholars and advanced students of sociology, social policy, economics, public administration and management, as well as social policy practitioners and service delivery workers.

After Urban Regeneration is a comprehensive study of contemporary trends in urban policy and planning. Leading scholars come together to create a key contribution to the literature on gentrification, with a focus on the history and theory of community in urban policy. Engaging with debates as to how urban policy has changed, and continues to change, following the financial crash of 2008, the book provides an essential antidote to those who claim that culture and society can replicate the role of the state. Based on research from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Connected Communities programme and with a unique set of case studies drawing on artistic and cultural community work. The book sets out the argument that post-2010, UK urban policy has ended what was termed “regeneration” policy. In the current context, driven further after May 2015, communities, towns and cities are left to fend for themselves. The book concludes by arguing the role of the university in its relationship with urban communities also has to change with this context. The resources of universities can help local communities better understand the challenges they face and possible solutions.

The book provides a comprehensive analysis of research and policies examining the development of age-friendly cities and communities. The chapters examine the theoretical assumptions behind the idea of an ‘age-friendly community’; provide case studies of age-friendly work in contrasting environments in Asia, Australia and Europe; and assess different design and policy interventions aimed at improving the physical and social environments in which people live. The book also has a ‘Manifesto for Change’, directed at the various stakeholders working in the field, containing a range of proposals aimed at raising ambitions for developing age-friendly activity.

Population ageing and globalisation represent two of the most radical and far reaching social transformations that have occurred since the middle of the last century. This book provides, for the first time, an accessible overview of how they interact. Ageing has been conventionally framed within the boundaries of nation states, yet demographic changes, transmigration, financial globalization and the global media have rendered this perspective problematic. This book critically applies theories of globalisation, notably Appadurai’s model of the landscapes of global modernity, to gerontology. In so doing the books aims to assess the impact of globalization on the experiences and expectations of ageing and later life. Drawing on data from a wide range of studies, the book explores the state of the health, financial circumstances, identity and sense of belonging of the world’s older population. The key argument presented in the book is that, although we are witnessing the decline of the nation-state as the dominant spatial unit through which to understand ageing and later life we are yet to witness the emergence of a global spatial order. The book concludes by arguing that the economic, political and cultural co-ordinates of later life have become increasingly located in a series of overlapping spatial logics encompassing the local, the national, the regional and the global.

With socio-economic and demographic changes taking place in contemporary societies, new patterns of family relations are forming partly due to significant family changes, value shifts, precariousness in the labour market, and increasing mobility within and beyond national boundaries. This book explores the exchange of support between generations and examines variations in contemporary practices and rationales in different regions and societies around the world. It draws on theoretical perspectives and empirical analyses to discuss both newly emerging patterns of family reciprocity and more established ones which are affected by changing opportunities and pressures in contemporary societies. The book is split into two parts: the first reviews key theoretical and conceptual debates in this field, while the second offers new insights and an understanding of exchange practices based on case studies from different regions and different relationships.

Targeted as ‘grey consumers’, people retiring now participated in the creation of the post-war consumer culture. These consumers have grown older, but have not stopped consuming. Based on extensive analysis over two years, this book examines the engagement of older people with consumer society in Britain since the 1960s. It charts the changes in the experience of later life in the UK over the last fifty years, the rise of the ‘individualised consumer citizen’ and what this means for health and social policies.

This book is a timely collection of interdisciplinary and critical chapters about the fields of ageing studies and the sociology of everyday life as broadly conceived to explore the meaningful connections between subjective lives and social worlds in later life. The scope of the writing expands beyond traditional approaches in these fields to engage with cross-cultural, feminist, spatial, ethnographic, technological, cinematic, new media and arts research. Readers will find the detailed attention to everyday experiences, places, biographies, images, routines, intimacies and temporalities illuminating, while appreciating the wider critiques of ageism and exclusion that inform each chapter. The book also contributes to the growing international area of ‘critical gerontology’ by comprising two parts on ‘materialities’ and ‘embodiments’, foci that emphasize the material and embodied contexts that shape the experiences of ageing. The chapters on ‘materialities’ investigate things, possessions, homes, technologies, environments, and their representations, while the complementary chapters on ‘embodiments’ examine living spaces, clothing, care practices, mobility, touch, gender and sexuality, and health and lifestyle regimes. Overall, in both its parts the book contests the dominant cultural narratives of vulnerability, frailty and disability that dominate ageing societies today and offers in their place the resourceful potential of local and lived spheres of agency, citizenship, humanity and capability.

This collection of in-depth ethnographic analyses examines the care, or lack of care, older people receive in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and how it affects the contemporary life-worlds of those older people in need of social and health care. It provides the pan-African evidence and analysis needed to move forward debates about how to address the long term care needs of this vulnerable population. Case studies from different regions of the continent (southern, central, east and west Africa) examine formal and informal (familial) care, including inter- and intra-generational care, care in contexts of poverty, HIV/AIDS and migration, as well as institutionalization.

At a time of extreme globalisation Ageing in the Mediterranean fills a key void in international literature on ageing societies. This important and timely volume brings together a distinguished set of international scholars who provide rich information about the social, economic, political, and historical factors responsible for shaping ageing policy in the Mediterranean region. It is a regional handbook that highlights the idiosyncrasies of overlapping ageing issues in one particular territory and presents a range of key issues and concerns including migration, care-giving, employment, and health care amongst others, whilst providing rich data from various countries such as Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Portugal, Tunisia and Turkey. Ageing in the Mediterranean will be warmly welcomed by researchers in social and public policy, gerontology and geriatrics, welfare economics, and health care. It will also be of interest to policy makers and NGOs involved in welfare and social care services.

Many western nations have experienced a rise in the number of marginalised and deprived inner-city neighbourhoods. Despite a plethora of research focused on these areas, there remain few studies that have sought to capture the ‘optimality’ of ageing in place in such places. In particular, little is known about why some older people desire to age in place despite multiple risks in their neighbourhood and why others reject ageing in place. Given the growth in both the ageing of the population and policy interest in the cohesion and sustainability of neighbourhoods there is an urgent need to better understand the experience of ageing in marginalised locations. This book aims to address the shortfall in knowledge regarding older people's attachment to deprived neighbourhoods and in so doing progress what critics have referred to as the languishing state of environmental gerontology. The author examines new cross-national research with older people in deprived urban neighbourhoods and suggests a rethinking and refocusing of the older person's relationship with place. Impact on policy and future research are also discussed. This book will be relevant to academics, students, architects, city planners and policy makers with an interest in environmental gerontology, social exclusion, urban sustainability and design of the built environment.

Demographic ageing is identified as a global challenge with significant social policy implications across local, national and international contexts. The 2008 economic crisis and related austerity policies further compound and complicate this challenge. Social policy pressures characterising ageing societies increasingly need to be understood within the context of the economic recession and the evolving circumstances of austerity. Yet, the extent to which the global economic crisis intensifies problems experienced in later life has been largely neglected as a research and policy topic. This book addresses this deficit by using Ireland as a site for unpacking social policy issues in ageing through austerity. The book interrogates whether or not the economic recession and austerity has in fact altered ageing experiences for older people in Ireland. A selection of internationally recognised policy issues for ageing societies are explored; demography; citizenship; participation and volunteering; work, gender and pensions; age-friendly communities and place; dementia care; and social exclusion. The book presents a critical analysis to contextualise and elaborate on international debates around these issues within the Irish austerity setting, and to identify future directions for research and policy that are relevant beyond Ireland. A central goal of contributors is to demonstrate linkages between the global, national and local levels that shape the experiences of ageing in a time of austerity. The emphasis, however, is as much on the capacity of the local to shape and manipulate global influence and forces, as it is about the power of globalisation over national and community contexts.

This is the first book to address the issue of ageing after a long life with disability. It breaks new ground through its particular lifecourse perspective, examining what it means to age with a physical or mental disability and what the implications are of ‘becoming old’ for people who have had extensive disabilities for many years. These people may have had to leave the labour market early, and the book looks at available care resources, both formal and informal. Ageing with disability challenges set ideas about successful ageing, as well as some of those about disabilities. The lifecourse approach that is used unfolds important insights about the impact of multiple disabilities over time and on the phases of life. The book highlights the meaning of care in unexplored contexts, such as where ageing parents are caregivers or regarding mutual care in disabled couples. These are areas of knowledge which have, to date, been totally neglected.

Life-course meaning and insight remain stubbornly significant for (older) people: it is damaging to inhabit societies that believe existence loses meaning after paid employment ceases. This view amounts to the social exclusion of older people, needing to be countered both politically and by exploring alternative interpretations of older age. Using examples from the author’s experience in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Austria and the US, the book deploys a confluence of disciplinary approaches, exploring compelling versions of later-life meaning in everyday life and gerontological literature. In earlier chapters it interrogates taken-for-granted practices making it harder to attach meaning to later life, including problems in discussing ethics, everyday reasoning, or the importance of human connectedness. It then examines varieties of meaning attributed to later life among gerontologists and older people themselves: meaning as stressing connectedness with values or practices outside individuals; meaning stressing (life-)time, life-course development and ‘generativity’; and meaning as insight, including inside into the human condition, and wisdom. Exploring these, the book uses ‘reconstructive ethnography’ to interpret meaning connected with time, narrative and practice. It probes ideas about wisdom in psychology and philosophy, including Aristotle’s connection of wisdom with reasoning, ethics, and urgent practical politics in uncertain circumstances. The book offers a social, transactional account of wisdom, used in co-operation among imperfect individuals who together can achieve more than they could alone. It illustrates the appeal of this idea in art and everyday life: reviving ideas about wisdom offers coherence, hope and meaning for social and individual life-course aims.

The volume discusses the interrelationship between critical and humanistic gerontology. It prepares the common ground for these two paradigms that have developed separately with each drawing on their own traditional resources. The purpose of this volume is to explore the extent to which they presuppose and complement each other: as structural analysis and articulations of interpersonal meanings in later life. This general theme is explored with a changing focus on specific themes, such as globalization, the post-traditional society, autonomy and interdependence; interpersonal meanings in ageing, agency and the fourth age; dementia, spirituality and self development; autonomy and social isolation; social work with older people and participatory action research. The volume is completed by a critical commentary on some of its main themes.

Drinking is frequently described as a contemporary, worsening and peculiarly British social problem that requires radical remedial regulation. Comparative data, however, undermines such views and historical research shows that extreme bouts of alarm about drinking have occurred in this country for at least four centuries. So why is Britain such a fertile breeding ground for public anxieties about alcohol? This innovative book takes a genealogical look at both public attitudes and the regulation of alcohol in England and Wales. It draws on the concept of moral regulation and makes extensive use of press and legal sources in its analysis. Ultimately it is argued that, rather than a response to current behavioural trends,the continuing anxiety apparent in how we think about and regulate alcohol is best understood as a historic hangover which derives, in particular, from the Victorian period. The product of several years of research, this book is essential reading for students, academics and anyone with a serious interest in understanding Britain’s ‘drink problem’.

In the last decade, developed welfare states have witnessed a pendulum swing away from unconditional entitlement to social assistance, towards greater emphasis on obligations and conditions tied to the receipt of financial aid. Through administrative reforms, conditions of entitlement have been narrowed. With the introduction of compulsory work for recipients, the contract between the state and uninsured unemployed people is changing. The product of research funded by the European Union, this book compares ‘work-for-welfare’ — or workfare — programmes objectively for the first time. It considers well-publicised schemes from the United States alongside more overlooked examples of workfare programmes from six European countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark and Britain. It is the first time that details of workfare programmes have been collated in such a format. This book provides an analysis of the ideological debates that surround compulsory work programmes and gives a detailed overview of the programmes implemented in each country, including their political and policy contexts and the forces that have combined to facilitate their implementation. Similarities and differences between programmes are explored. Explanations for differences and lessons for policy makers are discussed.