George W. Leeson

Income Inequality and Health: Importance of a Cross-Country Perspective

This paper uses a unique dataset-containing information collected in 2006 on individuals aged 40-79 in 21 countries throughout the world to examine whether individual income, relative income in a reference group, and income inequality are related to health status across middle/low and high-income countries. The dependent variable is self-assessed health (SAH), and as a robustness check, activities of daily living (ADL) are considered. The focus is particularly on assumptions regarding an individuals reference group and on how the estimated relationships depend on the level of economic development. Correcting for national differences in health reporting behavior, individual absolute income is found to be positively related to individual health. Furthermore, in the high-income sample, there is strong evidence that average income within a peer-age group is negatively related to health, thus supporting the relative income hypothesis. In middle/low-income countries, it is instead average regional income that is negatively associated with health. Finally, there is evidence of a negative relationship between income inequality and individual health in high-income countries. Overall, the results suggest that there might be important differences in these relationships between high-income and middle/low-income countries.

Grandfathers in Contemporary Families in Britain: Evidence from Qualitative Research

In recent years, research into grandparenthood has gained considerable momentum, particularly in the United States and increasingly in Europe. However, there has been little research focusing on understanding the contribution of grandfathers. While the perception of grandmothers as more involved than grandfathers remains commonplace, some recent research provides indications of a more changing picture. In attempting to address this knowledge gap, this paper provides evidence from ongoing qualitative research with grandfathers. It focuses on themes of emotionality and caring in mens understandings of being a grandfather. In so doing, it considers whether the salience of these themes points to the emergence of “new” grandfatherhood, particularly among younger cohorts of grandfathers. Finally, the paper explores these findings in relation to the wider policy context around grandparenthood, complementary care, and working families.

Future prospects for longevity.

It is acknowledged that the world is ageing at both the individual and population level. Life expectancies at birth have increased for males and females in the more developed economies across the 20th century. The 21st century is expected to see this development continue with life expectancies moving towards 100 years. This paper looks at the evidence for future increases in life expectancy and for the longest-lived to live even longer.

My Home Is My Castle-Housing in Old Age

Abstract During the course of the latter decades of the twentieth century, housing in old age became a central issue in discussions relating to the preparation for retirement as the growing cohorts of older people across Europe retired earlier and could look forward to increasing years in retirement, often in housing, which had been ideal for parents and children, but which would become increasingly cumbersome, particularly for the partner destined to survive into advanced old age. Towards the end of the 1970s, in response to a rapidly ageing population, the Danish Government established the worlds first Commission on Ageing to develop a coherent, joined-up policy for older people, and housing was a key issue in the work of that Commission. Interest in these issues has not abated in the subsequent decades and at the turn of the twenty-first century there is still widespread research, and policy development in the field. In Denmark, where attractive, supported housing for older people has been a key element in housing policy development, both younger and older generations display a solid lack of propensity to move to housing, which would be more suitable in old age. Since 1987, the Danish Longitudinal Future Study (DLFS) has followed in three waves four generations originally aged 40–64 years, analysing and elucidating among other things their attitudes and expectations to housing in general, and to housing in old age. This paper presents the results of the study relating to the four generations of the study and considers the policy implications of the results.

International Handbook on Ageing and Public Policy

With the collective knowledge of expert contributors in the field, The International Handbook on Ageing and Public Policy explores the challenges arising from the ageing of populations across the globe. With an expansive look at the topic, this comprehensive Handbook examines various national state approaches to welfare provisions for older people and highlights alternatives based around the voluntary and third-party sector, families and private initiatives. Each of these issues are broken down further and split into six comprehensive sections: Context Pensions Health Welfare Case Studies Policy Innovation and Civil Society Academics interested in policy challenges for mature societies will find this Handbook a highly relevant reference tool. It also offers an important message for policy makers and practitioners in the field of public policy.

Variations in Grandchildren's Perceptions of their Grandfathers and Grandmothers: Dynamics of Age and Gender

In this article, we investigate grandchildrens perceptions of their relations with grandfathers and grandmothers. There is very little research examining grandchild-grandparent relationships from the perspective of grandchildren. Research on grandparenthood and multigenerational families has consistently suggested that it is maternal grandmothers and granddaughters who have the closest relationships. We question this finding by pointing to the significant variations by age and gender in grandchildrens perceptions of the grandparents, both with whom they have most contact and with whom they get on best. Matrilineal advantage toward maternal grandmothers is less obvious for the older grandchildren within our sample and even less so for older grandsons. Grandsons ages 12 and over are more likely to perceive maternal grandfathers as the grandparent they get on best. Thus, the perceived salience of grandfathers relative to grandmothers varied significantly by age and gender of grandchild. The findings support the importance of a multidimensional construct of intergenerational solidarity, distinguished in our cases between the associational and affectual solidarity dimensions, as developed by Bengtson and others, which allows us to understand why a grandchild could have more contact with one grandparent, yet feel closer to another.

Grandfatherhood: Shifting Masculinities in Later Life

Drawing on qualitative interview data, this article examines how grandfatherhood relates to the assertion and transformation of masculinities in later life. Recent attention to ageing and masculinities has identified how older men are challenged to succeed in maintaining connections to hegemonic masculinity in light of altered family and life circumstances. We consider men’s engagement with grandfatherhood as a means for so doing, illustrating how men make sense of the role through continuity with hegemonic masculinity. While grandfathers describe emotionally intimate and affectionate relationships with their grandchildren, their accounts reflect desires to re-affirm previous connections to masculinities. Attention to the way individualised masculinities are re-negotiated in later life can help to explain how men are making sense of the new family opportunities that arise from being a grandparent. Such an analysis of grandfatherhood, we argue, also offers significant critique of hegemonic masculinity and its distinction to non-hegemonic masculinities intersected by old age.

Changing Patterns of Contact with and Attitudes to the Family in Denmark

Abstract The 20th century saw dramatic ageing of populations in the more developed world, and this aging is expected to continue-and include developing countrieswell into the 21st century. Almost all aspects of society have been and will continue to be affected by this population ageing. In addition, family structures have undergone similarly dramatic change. Against this background, this paper considers the patterns of contact older people in Denmark have with children and siblings, and Danish attitudes to the family as a supportive institution. This is of significance as the role and importance of intergenerational relationships and the family seem to be increasing even in the well-developed Danish welfare state. The paper presents results of the Danish Longitudinal (Panel) Future Study. This interviewed three different cohorts aged 40–44, 50–54 and 60–64 years at Phase I in 1987. These were re-interviewed in Phase II in 1997 aged 50–54, 60–64 and 70–74 years, respectively, along with a new cohort of 40–44-year-olds. All cohorts have moved towards more contact with children and siblings, and a more positive view on the family as a supportive institution, indicating that there seems to have been a general move in the population as a whole and not just in specific cohorts or age groupsin other words, a period effect. The significant move towards a more positive view on the family as a supportive institution is interesting in view of the fact that the supportive role of reconstituted and step families in later life has been the cause of concern, the familial complexities not lending themselves to any particular pattern or structure of care. Even in Denmark, while there is a trend on the surface towards looser-knit, divorce-extended families, the importance of the family and of the family as a supportive institution has not weakened-on the contrary.

Increasing Longevity and the New Demography of Death

The world is ageing at both an individual and population levels and population ageing is truly a global phenomenon, the only notable region of exception being sub-Saharan Africa, which remains relatively young in demographic terms. At an individual level, life expectancies at birth have increased at the global level from 47 years in the mid-20th century to around 70 years today and are expected to rise to 76 years by the mid-21st century. At the population level, the proportion of the world’s population aged 60 years and over has increased from 8 percent in the mid-20th century to 12 percent, and by 2050, it is expected to reach 21 percent. In Europe, ageing has continued at a slower rate, but with the emergence of increasing numbers of centenarians. This paper outlines the transition using data from England and Wales from a demography of young death in the mid-19th century to a demography of survival in the 20th century and on to the new demography of old death in the 21st century. The paper provides evidence that it is likely that ages at death will continue to increase, with more and more people reaching extreme old age. At the same time, it is likely that life expectancies at birth will continue to rise, taking life expectancy at birth in England and Wales to 100 years or more by the end of the 21st century. The new 21st century demography of death will lead to annual numbers of deaths far in excess of previous maxima.

Out of the Shadows: Are Grandfathers Defining Their Own Roles in the Modern Family in Denmark?

This chapter reports on a study of forty-nine grandfathers in Denmark to determine whether the role of grandfather in the modern Danish family is different from that of previous generations of grandparents.