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Sparking debate where science, policy and the public meet
Across our lives science is presenting us with new choices. Advances in reproductive medicine are confronting young people with moral choices unimagined by their parents. Our workplaces are being t...
Social care funding: a modest proposal
This weekend, we had a street party in my Oxford neighbourhood as part of the Great Get Together to honour the memory of Jo Cox, the MP who was killed last year. For some of us with busy live...
What I’ve learnt about ageing from my grandparents
As I’m very close to finishing my PhD, I often think about my grandparents because they are the reason why I got here in the first place. They are both 83, both still working. Which is very u...
The Great Demographic Divide: Voting Patterns and Age
On Thursday the nation will, once again, head to the polling booths. As a statistician and demographer (as well as a voter under the age of 35), the difference in voting patterns by age is on...
Open data or data dump?
“More than 714,000 young people have registered to vote since Theresa May called for a snap election” begins a recent Independent article, before it goes on to speculate gently ab...
Is it possible to delay human ageing? The evolution of anti-ageing treatments
Is it possible to delay human ageing? Brian Hanley, the founder of Butterfly Sciences, a company that has developed gene therapies for ageing, strongly believes that delaying human ageing is alr...
Ageing Canadians: Census reveals more seniors than children living in Canada
The 2016 Canadian census results were released on May 3 and have revealed that there are a greater number of older adults than children, for the first time in census history. Statistics Canad...
Long-term care needs for older persons and the youth bulge in sub-Saharan Africa: an interface with potential for growth ... (!?)
In the May 2017 newsletter of Ron Smith Care Centre operated by the Rand Aid Association, a registered non-profit organisation offering a continuum of care to older persons in Johannesburg So...
Russia’s Changing Relations with Europe and Asia
In my blog of 15 February 2017 I reported on my completion of a forthcoming article in the Journal of Population Ageing on the topic of ‘The Changing Capabilities of Cohorts of the Elder...
Living too long? Is this the beginning of the end of the success story?
One of the greatest achievements of humankind has to be that as many people as possible are living as long as possible. But is this the beginning of the end of this success story? Around the wor...
A new composite indicator: the Index of Wellbeing in Later Life (WILL)
In February Age UK published an Index of Wellbeing in Later Life. Anyone interested in composite indicators should have a look at it. The introduction to the summary report on the Index...
Robots and ageing: a design dilemma
In designing the next generation of products and services to enhance the experience of later life and allow people to live independently for longer, there are two diametrically opposed design appro...
Social Care and the Spring Budget
The announcement that the Spring budget will provide social care with an additional £2bn for the next three years, with £1bn available in 2017-8 has been met with an understandably mixe...
Longevity and music as meaning
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” -- Nietzsche To celebrate his 75th birthday, Maurizio Pollini is playing two concerts at London’s Royal Festiv...
Happiness in Germany and Denmark: Hygge vs Gemütlichkeit
The ‘Better life index’ is an instrument to compare countries based on eleven topics of well-being indicators like education, work-life balance or life satisfaction. Of particular note ...