Kate A. Hamblin

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.

Telecare, obtrusiveness, acceptance and use: An empirical exploration:

Introduction Telecare is increasingly part of the United Kingdom (UK)’s health and social care arrangements, and therefore occupational therapists’ practice. Understanding factors which influence telecare’s acceptance and usage is important to ensure optimal outcomes, both for service users and health and social care systems. Method This paper uses data collected by a qualitative, multi-method, longitudinal research study (n = 60) to explore whether an American model of ‘obtrusiveness’ is applicable to the UK context by examining what factors influence older adults’ acceptance and use of telecare. Findings The obtrusiveness model is broadly applicable to the UK context, but there are also two further issues which affected the acceptance and use of telecare: the degree of control a service user feels they have and the information and support they receive in using their devices. Conclusion The obtrusiveness model, plus the two additions (control and information), highlight important issues which could assist professionals working with telecare, including occupational therapists, in ensuring telecare is both accepted and well used.

Informal and formal reconciliation strategies of older peoples’ working carers: the European carers@work project

Faced with a historically unprecedented process of demographic ageing, many European societies implemented pension reforms in recent years to extend working lives. Although aimed at rebalancing public pension systems, this approach has the unintended side effect that it also extends the number of years in which working carers have to juggle the conflicting demands of employment and caregiving. This not only impinges on working carers’ well-being and ability to continue providing care but also affects European enterprises’ capacity to generate growth which increasingly relies on ageing workforces. The focus of this paper will thus be a cross-national comparison of individual reconciliation strategies and workplace-related company policies aimed at enabling working carers to reconcile both conflicting roles in four different European welfare states: Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom.

Das AKTIVE-Projekt – Maßgeschneiderte assistive Technologien für sturzgefährdete und demenzkranke ältere Menschen in Großbritannien

Mit dem britischen AKTIVE-Forschungsprojekt wird in diesem Beitrag ein innovatives Beispiel internationaler Forschung zum Einsatz technischer Hilfsmittel in der hauslichen Pflege vorgestellt, das gerade fur die landlich gepragten Regionen Ostdeutschlands, Nordhessens und Nordbayerns, weite Teile Niedersachsens und von Rheinland-Pfalz mit ihren besonders rasch alternden Bevolkerungen (Kiziak et al. 2014; Klingholz 2016) vielversprechende Anknupfungspunkte zur Forderung unabhangigen Lebens bietet.

Researching telecare: the importance of context

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a research method which offers insights into the factors which affect the optimal use and implementation of telecare, or which may lead to its rejection by older people with support needs – factors pertinent to those involved in the design and delivery of both telecare research studies and of services. Design/methodology/approach The methodology outlined, influenced by Chicago School and Science and Technology Studies, emphasises the importance of context when examining social phenomena, such as the use of technology. The multi-method approach identified key patterns which provide insights into how telecare was used by a sample of older adults, including information on its suboptimal use and rejection. Findings The study of telecare use in real-life situations – and the investigation of other complex social interventions – requires an approach which fully considers the importance of context in explaining social phenomena. The main value of the method and findings lies in the insights offered to designers of larger studies which seek to generalise results, including telecare randomised control trials, as well as for those involved in the delivery of telecare services to achieve optimal adoption and use. Originality/value The study methods described combined ethnographic, longitudinal and qualitative methodologies and creative research tools in an innovative way to allow exploration of how context affects the uptake and use of telecare.

Policy Convergence, Divergence and Intragenerational Equity in EU15 Nations

This chapter will bring both the macro and micro empirical elements explored in Chapters 4–7 together for an analytical discussion with reference to the literature from the first two chapters. Following the argument that early exit and retirement policies allow for the decommodification of labour, the retrenchment of these policies therefore represents a de facto shift towards recommodification, whilst the introduction of active labour market policies for older workers represent the de jure recommodification of labour. As explored in Chapters 2 and 3, the EU advocates the narrowing of decommodification options and the expansion of policies for the recommodification of labour as part of its ‘active ageing’ agenda. This strategy, it is argued, is necessary to achieve the end of increased and prolonged labour market participation in older age and in turn prevent intergenerational conflict and maintain welfare arrangements. Thus where nations have retrenched their policies for the decommodification of labour whilst at the same time expanding their policies for the recommodification of labour, they could in the context of the EU targets and guidelines be considered to adhere to this particular organisation’s active ageing agenda. This chapter therefore addresses three questions: first, are all nations converging towards the EU-vision of active ageing?

The EU’s Active Ageing Agenda

This chapter will begin by exploring the EU’s ‘active ageing’ discourse and proposed policy approach. As the preceding chapter outlined, active ageing policies can embody more than the governance of retirement to include areas such as leisure, voluntary work, health and wellbeing. For this book however, as the focus is on EU15 nations, it is important to examine the EU-level policy discourse on active ageing. In aiming to address the extent to which EU15 countries have converged towards the EU’s active ageing policy agenda, this book acknowledges that it does not necessarily follow that all nations will adopt the same sets of policies, or that the EU has caused any policy change. This chapter therefore includes arguments to suggest why differences in national approaches may persist, both in terms of the policy mixes they present, and in terms of how these welfare arrangements interact with different groups within the older age cohort. Finally, this chapter will outline the schema which will be used to address EU15 nations’ progress towards the EU’s active ageing approach.

Active Ageing: Origins and Resurgence

This book explores the recent pension and unemployment policy developments for older people in EU15 nations with a view to determining whether there has been a shift towards the EU’s ‘active ageing’ agenda in all nations and for all sub-groups within the ‘older age’ cohort. As such it begins by examining the development of the concept of ‘active ageing’ before presenting arguments regarding its resurgence in the 1990s. It therefore discusses the demographic pressures faced by current welfare arrangements and the potential intergenerational conflict that may arise as a result, as well as situating the active ageing agenda within the broader shifts towards either the recommodification of labour or the inclusion of older individuals in the ‘reserve army of labour’. Though this chapter will explore some of the potential explanations for focus on ‘active ageing’, it seeks to provide an introduction to these debates as opposed to a definitive answer or identify a causal relationship; this book instead aims to address the extent to which EU15 nations have subscribed to the EU’s vision of policies for older individuals.

Group II: Surpassing Stockholm

The Netherlands, Finland and Germany made significant progress with regard to the Stockholm target. In 2001, all were below the 50% employment rate goal but within nine years exceeded it at a rate that was above the average for all EU15 nations (9.6%) (Eurostat, 2011). Again, as with the preceding chapter, the policy context prior to 2001 will be addressed, as well as the reforms undertaken until 2010. The impact of these changes at the micro-level will then be explored and compared.

Group III: Below Stockholm but Approaching Fast

Of those nations that were still below the Stockholm target, some had made more progress than others. Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg were still under this 50% goal for 55–64 year olds’ labour market participation and the latter two also remained the lowest among all EU15 nations for 55–64 year olds’ employment rates. However, in terms of the progress they had made, it must be acknowledged that these nations had the most ground to make up, having the lowest employment rates in 2001. Thus the increases they have made need to be considered and all three have surpassed the average rise for EU15 nations in total (9.6%).