The core of the research reported in this study was a survey of men and women 55 years and older sampled from a comprehensive list of residents. The authors asked questions about social networks, control over household assets, household composition, life satisfaction, and subjective health, among other things. The social network questions had been used in an earlier study done in Kentucky. Nearly everything else had been developed for the Delhi study. The findings were similar to those in the earlier study: the size of people's networks does not decline materially until they are older (80 plus). Age itself did not seem that important, but health was crucial. Persons who reported they were healthy had larger networks.

As one might expect, joint family life has great impact on the nature of social life among older people. This has to do with the big difference in the situation of men and women in India. In addition to being patrilineal kin groups, joint families are dominated by male economic interests. The males as a collective group inherit property. Women have much less control of household assets. This ethnographic fact appeared very clearly in the answers to questions about participation in household decision making. High involvement in decisions, which the authors construed as a measure of power, spilled over into other aspects of the social aging process. Persons who were powerful in their households tended to have large networks, better subjective health, and much higher life satisfaction. They also tended to be men. The women tended to have small networks, low life satisfaction, lower subjective health, and less power. These differences between men and women were all substantial and highly significant. Gender is an extraordinarily important factor in the outcomes of social aging processes in India.

This first-hand empirical study of elderly Soviet Jews who immigrated to Israel during the Great Exodus of 1989 to 1991 demonstrates the double jeopardy of transnational relocation in later life. The book traces the depletions that occurred in the elderly immigrants' social networks and examines the impact of a range of network factors on their personal well-being. Given the dearth of systematic field research into the problems and needs of elderly immigrants, and of this group in particular, gerontologists and sociologists will find this case study invaluable. Students, teachers, policymakers, social service providers, and other professional practitioners will gain from the findings about elderly immigrants' network relationships and from practical suggestions for the planning of effective network interventions on their behalf.

For about a decade, one of the most influential forces in US anti-immigrant politics was the Minuteman Project. The armed volunteers made headlines patrolling the southern border. What drove their ethno-nationalist politics? Jennifer L. Johnson spent hundreds of hours observing and interviewing Minutemen, hoping to answer that question. She reached surprising conclusions. While the public face of border politics is hypermasculine-men in uniforms, fatigues, and suits-older women were central to the Minutemen. Women mobilized support and took part in border missions. These women compel us to look beyond ideological commitments and material benefits in seeking to understand the appeal of right-wing politics. Johnson argues that the women of the Minutemen were motivated in part by the gendered experience of aging in America. In a society that makes old women irrelevant, aging white women found their place through anti-immigrant activism, which wedded native politics to their concern for the safety of their families. Grandmothers on Guard emphasizes another side of nationalism: the yearning for inclusion. The nation the Minutemen imagined was not only a space of exclusion but also one in which these women could belong.

This very first comprehensive book-length reference guide dealing with older adult education synthesizes current information about theoretical developments with specific practical details about the latest programs, policies, and research in the field. It is unique in placing the subject of lifelong learning into historical perspectives, discussing ways in which programs have been transformed over the last 15 to 20 years, and in considering the impact of institutional policies on older adult education. This guide points to demographic trends relating to aging and older learners; discusses older learner motives in relation to program missions and rationales; describes new opportunities for retirement-age people and the special role of education today; reviews the history of 12 different types of programs; compares five community-based model programs in college and universities, senior centers, shopping centers, and churches and synagogues; considers computer and electronic learning programs; reviews research and programs dealing with intergenerational education; and assesses future prospects in the field. Appendices describe important organizations, programs, sources of information, state tuition waiver policies, and other guidelines and data. Relevant statistics, research findings, numerous tables, original documents, and anecdotes about the experiences of older learners further enrich this state-of-the discipline reference guide for academic, professional, and public libraries and broad audiences of teachers, students, professionls, and general readers concerned with older Americans.

This comprehensive reference in family gerontology reviews and critiques the recent theoretical, empirical, and methodological literature; identifies future research directions; and makes recommendations for gerontology professionals. This book is both an updated version of and a complement to the original Handbook of Families and Aging. The many additions include the most recent demographic changes on aging families, new theoretical formulations, innovative research methods, recent legal issues, and death and bereavement, as well as new material on the relationships themselves-sibling, partnered, and intergenerational relationships, for example. Among the brand-new topics in this edition are step-family relationships, aging families and immigration, aging families and 21st-century technology, and peripheral family ties. Unlike the more cursory summaries found in textbooks, the essays within Handbook of Families and Aging, Second Edition provide thoughtful, in-depth coverage of each topic. No other book provides such a comprehensive and timely overview of theory and research on family relationships, the contexts of family life, and major turning points in late-life families. Nevertheless, the contents are written to be engaging and accessible to a broad audience, including advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, researchers, and gerontology practitioners. Serious lay readers will also find this book highly informative about contemporary family issues. Comprises 23 chapters of all-original work covering background information, relationships, contexts of family life, and turning points such as retirement and divorce Contributions from 46 distinguished scholars recognized as leading experts in their fields Citations for cutting-edge research on each topic, plus foundational references in new areas A detailed topic index

This volume develops a comprehensive multivariate paradigm of the process of aging, delineating the factors underlying age-related degeneration. The model is aimed at understanding the conditions under which age sets into motion a process of degeneration. Accumulating evidence suggests that age per se is not the decisive factor in age-related regression--leading scholars to distinguish between chronological and functional age. The process of degeneration is evidently due to the combined impact of deleterious biophysiological, psychological, and socio-cultural factors and the interaction among them.

Based on this evidence, Zeev Ben-Sira shows how age-related degeneration can be viewed as a product of a damaging cycle of reciprocally activating stimuli from the person's internal and external environment. Consequently, aging is conceptualized as a process of bio-psychosocial regression. The paradigm outlined in this volume identifies factors that are likely to accelerate or decelerate the process of aging.

This multidisciplinary guide to the literature and research about the physical and psychological aspects of successful, normal, and productive aging is designed for students, teachers, and practitioners who deal with the elderly. The introduction discusses perceptions of aging well. The 500 entries are arranged alphabetically by author under nine topics: physical aging, psychological aging, social aging, family, living arrangements, work and economics, education and leisure, politics, and religion. An appendix covers sources dealing with the measurement of aging well. The careful author and subject indexes make this annotated bibliography easy-to-use for researchers in the fields of history, economics, psychology, sociology, law, theology, demography, public health, political science, home economics, family studies, women's studies, pharmacy, and health administration, among others.

Take charge of your health If you are an aging individual in the United States, it's crucial to understand present health-care policies and doctor-patient relations so you can aggressively demand the best care. Once you know the ins and outs, you'll feel secure and enjoy the aging process. The first step is to acknowledge two important facts: 1. As a member of the elderly population in the United States, you are part of a significant numerical force in society. 2. You can-and should-be certain that your voice is heard in every aspect of social and medical planning. Aging Aggressively also offers advice on personal health practices, including valuable resources to help you successfully manage your health. You're not dead yet Take the bull by the horns and demand the best care for yourself so that you can live-and age-well.

The dramatically increasing aging population of Hong Kong has elicited new risks and opportunities to facilitate a positive life for older adults. This book offers a holistic review of gerontological theories and literature, and constructs a conceptual framework of social support networks, coping and positive aging. In light of the implications of the convoy model of social support to depict an indigenous landscape of positive aging in Hong Kong, this is one of the very few empirical studies that adopts both quantitative research and qualitative research. The research consisted of a pilot study of in-depth interviews with 16 older Hong Kong Chinese and a main study surveying 393 older members of District Elderly Community Center. The results of the study indicate that family and peer support constitute the mainstay of support networks of the elderly, and that family and peer support are associated with positive aging. Moreover, the study shows that it is the depth of emotional closeness, namely, close interaction and intimacy with social partners that makes the greatest contribution to positive aging. Additionally, problem coping and emotion coping are found to mediate the relationship between social support networks and positive aging. There is potential in bringing more domestic helpers into elderly care and improving the service quality such that the goal of Aging in Place can be promoted in Hong Kong. Intended for researchers in social work, gerontology and positive psychology, it is also essential reading for graduates and social work professionals interested in this area. This book makes a valuable contribution to social gerontological research among Hong Kong older adults and the promotion of wellbeing in the elderly via the construct of positive aging in the culture of Chinese society.

This book presents new insights into the consequences of the impending growth in and impact of the older segment of Latino aging adults across distinctive regions of the Americas. It uses a comparative research framework to further understanding of current issues in health and aging in the transnational context of the health and migratory experiences of the U.S.- Mexican population. It provides an important contribution to the interdisciplinary investigation of chronic diseases and functional impairments, social care and medical services, care-giving and intervention development, and neighborhood factors supporting optimal aging, using new conceptual and methodological approaches (inter-group comparisons). Specifically, the chapters employ different methodologies that investigate trends in aging health and services related to immigration processes, family and household structure, macroeconomic changes in the quality of community life, and focus on the new realities of aging in Latino families in local communities. The book focuses on measurement, data-quality issues, new conceptual modeling techniques, and longitudinal survey capabilities, and suggests needed areas of new research. As such it is of interest to researchers and policy makers in a wide range of disciplines from social and behavioral sciences to economics, gerontology, geriatrics, and public health.

Most studies of geriatric patients have focused on nursing homes. In fact, most people are placed in these institutions only after being evaluated by medical and social service staff. This ethnography details the day-to-day experiences of a geriatric and assessment unit by examining the staff, families, and patients themselves. It looks at the activities that take place in the unit as well as the less obvious cultural patterns of the process. Using the Ethnography of Speaking method, it explores the human side of this most difficult of life's decisions.

Aging, Health and Technology takes a problem-centered approach to examine how older adults use technology for health. It examines the many ways in which technology is being used by older adults, focusing on challenges, solutions and perspectives of the older user. Using aging-health technology as a lens, the book examines issues of technology adoption, basic human factors, cognitive aging, mental health, aging and usability, privacy, trust and automation. Each chapter takes a case study approach to summarize lessons learned from unique examples that can be applied to similar projects, while also providing general information about older adults and technology.

Examines and clarifies the role of adult children as service providers to elderly parents. Drawing upon extensive interviews with elderly parents and adult children, the author describes how each group perceives the relative importance of helping services and suggests means by which children can increase helping behavior.

Most studies of ageing have been done by the non-aged. To correct this imbalance, Hazan enlisted the resources of an unusual and innovative group of elderly persons in Cambridge, England. Gathering together in a structured curriculum of seminars and discussion groups and calling themselves the University of the Third Age, the elders intellectually reexamine the spectrum of sociocultural and epistemological principles starting with basics. Hazan's careful observation, description and transcription of the words of the Third Agers demonstrates that cognition and discourse go through transformations and permutations as individuals attain the so-called wisdom years. Alone in the literature on ageing, Hazan's contribution lights the way for much new thinking and research on and among our older population.

Like all other advanced Western societies, Germany is coming to terms with the phenomenon of an ageing population. The demographic challenge posed by population ageing is generally seen in terms of potential crisis in the funding of health and social programmes. Some social scientists have even suggested that the early decades of the next century will be marked by conflict between the generations, with young and old competing for increasingly scarce resources. This is the first book written in English to address comprehensively ageing policies in Germany and the contribution of older people to German society.
The book examines the development of social policies affecting older people since the origins of the German welfare state under Bismarck and looks at how policy makers have sought to cope with the growing numbers of elderly people over the years.
The social, economic and political role of older people in contemporary Germany and their contribution to society are also explored, from their development into a more politically active sector of society to their changing relationship with the labour market and their social integration in terms of their relationships with families, neighbourhoods and local communities.

KiddingAround: The Child in Film and Mediais a collection of essays generated by a conference of the same title held atthe University of the District of Columbia in September 2008.The works gathered examine a variety ofchildren's media, including texts produced for children (e.g., comic strips, children's books, cartoons, animated films) as well as texts about children(e.g., feature-length films, literature, playground architecture, parentingguides).The primary goal of KiddingAround is to analyze contested representations of childhood and children invarious twentieth- and twenty-first-century media while accounting for thepolitics of these narratives.Theprimary goal of Kidding Around is to contextualize key representationsof childhood and children disseminated throughout various media today.Each of the essays gathered offers a criticalhistory of the very notion of childhood, at the same time as it analyzesexemplary children's texts from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.These chapters depart from variousmethodological approaches (including psychoanalytic, sociological, ecological, and historical perspectives), offering the reader numerous productiveapproaches for analyzing the moments of cultural conflict and impasse foundwithin the primary works studied.Despite the fact that todaychildren are one of the most coveted demographics in marketing and viewership, academic work on children's media, and children in media, is justbeginning.Kidding Around assemblesexperts from this inchoate field, opening discussion to traditional andnon-traditional children's te

Southeast and East Asian countries are undergoing varying stages of population ageing. The social, economic and political implications of population ageing will be enormous, and because of the fast speed of ageing in the region, the countries cannot afford the luxury of time for the gradual evolution of social and structural support systems and networks for the older population. The essays in this volume critically examine national ageing policies and programmes, the sustainability of existing pension systems, housing and living arrangements, inter-generational transfer, and aspects of quality of life of the elderly population. While the findings show that most Southeast Asian countries have started to formulate and implement national ageing policies, they also indicate that the existing policies are by and large inadequate and underdeveloped in serving the needs of the older population and indeed much more must be done to prepare for the future.