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A note on pensioner poverty
Official statistics in the UK measure pensioner poverty in two basic ways - either by looking at the income of pensioner households/individuals relative to the UK median income or by looking at a m...
So, do experts now know what they are talking about?
On Thursday 23 June 2016 the EU referendum took place and the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. I am sure we all remember either with pain or with pleasure the campaig...
Changing Occupations in an Ageing Society
More and more consumer products targeted at older people are coming onto the market in Japan. This can be seen, for example, in the way that electronics manufacturers such Sony and Panasonic are in...
Ageing and place: exploring how cities shape older people’s lives
As we grow older our lives are increasingly shaped by where we live, and for growing numbers of older people in both high- and low-income countries, home is in the city. Rapid urban population agei...
Getting the right data for interdisciplinary research can be very difficult
Since I started my academic career, my interests have always been in the field of landscape ecology. I study the relationships between ecological processes, such as habitat selection for anim...
Community gerontology as an interdisciplinary interdiscipline?
Gerontology is in many ways a prime example of an interdiscipline[1]. Here, I attempt to elucidate the challenges and opportunities of community gerontology as an interdisciplinary interdiscipline....
Ageing and the Elderly in Rwanda – The Missing Voice
In June the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) will meet in Kigali the capital of Rwanda . They have chosen ‘youth’ as their theme. Despite its ferocity the Rwandan genoc...
Departing the EU, fake news, populism and our creaking health care system
This week’s Blog is a modified version of the Editorial: Global Risks and the resilience of future health care systems published in the Journal of Population Ageing, Springer: 2020, 1. ...
Population ageing research and the opportunities with social enterprises
For more than 3 decades, population ageing research has been firmly established in many leading academic institutions. The impacts of global ageing will be enormous across economical, social and te...
The Burgeoning Silver Economy
Sometimes it takes a while for a message to sink in. Consider the following: I'm a visiting fellow at the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. I blog about how to live a productive and m...
Go green and get moving - healthy cities at a crossroads
When cities get it right in terms of planning and design for health, chief among the beneficiaries are older people. We all recognise what an urban environment that supports better health looks and...
Resilience in older adults: Methodological challenges
When faced with the challenges of growing older, some people fare better than others when they experience similar levels of adversity. We call this “resilience”. The likelihood of...
Demographic change and political participation – The European elections 2019
Are European elections dominated by older voters as a result of ageing electorates and low participation among younger people? Between 2008 and 2018 the population share of people aged 65 or old...
Behavioural aspects of retirement decisions
Pension systems are currently under radical reconstruction, and in most European countries there is a shift from defined benefit (DB) to defined contribution (DC) schemes. The main rationale for...
Five ideas for a fast-changing world
Last Thursday, I had the privilege of attending the second annual meeting of The Longevity Forum, a relatively new player on the UK's ageing scene. As I noted last year when I attended ...