Blog
Latest
THE ‘I’ GENERATION™
I want to talk about the ‘I’ generation. This is the leading edge of the Baby Boomers, who have defined the Western world for the past 50+ years. Influential, based on their numbers alo...
The Longevity Forum
It's been a long time since I attended a conference where I found myself looking forward to every panel discussion. But that was precisely the feeling I had this past Monday, when I attended th...
Ageing Canadians: AGE-WELL & Canadian Association on Gerontology Annual Scientific Meeting Recap
Canada is unique in having a relatively small and very geographically diverse population of older adults. Ageing Canadians do, however, benefit from several dedicated groups of gerontologists, nota...
FLEX: the quality required from housing for older people
At a time when young people are struggling to get a foot on the housing ladder and there is a fierce debate going on about intergenerational fairness and finding a place to live, it is hard to make...
Killer heatwave
“Air conditioning heating up election campaign....Almost all of the deaths were of elderly people, almost of whom were living in places without air conditioning (A/C)” This headline ...
Older people’s campaigning comes of age
Earlier this year I wrote about the movement that has built up calling on the United Nations to pass a Convention on the rights of older people. In this 70th anniversary year of the Universal Decla...
Intergenerational social experiences on TV
Inspired by a TV show broadcast in the UK - “Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds” - Spain broadcasters have followed suit in making use of TV to disseminate good practices for inter...
The art of living with dementia
Dementia is one of the most feared diseases in our age. Most research is on how to combat the rise of dementia. In a Dutch project I am involved in, we rather try to understand what it means to liv...
Some comments on the pensions debate in Eastern Europe
Protests against raising the pension age have been shaking Russia this summer, with more expected in September, despite President Putin’s firm announcement that the increase is inevitable. Th...
Peer-review: an essential, but imperfect, part of the scientific process
Peer-review forms the backbone of scientific publication. Intended as a quality control mechanism, the hope is that peer-review will permit only the most rigorously conducted scientific studies to ...
Qualified Self – rethinking the Quantified Self movement for older people?
It is now widely accepted that having real-time data on what we eat, how much we exercise and how we sleep may be able to help us manage our health and wellbeing. We’ve become accustomed t...
60 is the new 60!
It has suddenly become trendy to be 60, with headlines across the world today proclaiming that 60 is the new 40. No – 60 is the new 60. I could write highligh...
Experimenting and ecosystem construction for population ageing challenges and opportunities
Population ageing is a global phenomenon and most policy makers, practitioners and researchers agree that it will have a major impact on all sorts of social arrangements, not only in those relative...
A new generational contract?
The Resolution Foundation published the final report of its Intergenerational Commission in May. After a flurry of predictably mixed responses in the mainstream press, we have to wait and see...
Getting older and more urban – a world of challenge and opportunity
The world is ageing – both at an individual and population level – and this ageing produces challenges and opportunities for governments and citizens across the globe. In addition, the ...