Exploring the Identities, Welfare Needs, and Service Use Experiences of Gay Men in Later Life - Adrian Martin Lee - University of York

Following a thorough review of gerontological literature and studies of gay and lesbian life, a sizeable gap was clearly visible. Gerontology has neglected to sufficiently incorporate discussion of sexuality, and especially homosexuality, and gay and lesbian studies have neglected older people. The result is that older gay men (OGM) have remained largely invisible. This thesis explores how issues of sexual identity formation influence the perceptions of, and attitudes towards, ageing for homosexual men, and their daily experiences in later life. The thesis highlights specific concerns of OGM, or alternative manifestations of the already well documented potential needs of older people. The intention is to inform policymaking and practice so individuals receive greater respect and dignity in later life and have their needs recognised, understood and met.

The thesis is based on empirical, exploratory, in-depth interviews with 15 OGM in England. Whilst the existing literature is insightful and has much to contribute, it does have limitations I seek to address. The data discussed is current, British, involving men with a diverse range of backgrounds, and who often had only weak connections to established gay male communities influenced by the fact they often lived in rural locations. I shed light upon a heterogeneous social group, but one that also shares similar life histories and experiences. Participants’ perceptions about their ageing processes counter both gerontological and gay assumptions about ageing. Exploring the sexual identities and responses to homosexual affiliation of OGM reveals diversity, which challenges stereotypes and existing discourses of the importance of coming out on positive ageing. It also highlights concerns about the ability of more closeted individuals to fully utilise informal and formal supports. Families, friends and partners are shown to be important sources of social interaction and assistance. However, there are limitations in the support available, creating a role for formal service provision. This challenges professions currently viewed, in part, with suspicion and fear, with which OGM are reluctant to fully engage. Thus, I make suggestions about how to instigate positive changes in practice which could benefit all older people, not just OGM. In all, this study connects identity work with everyday experience and service use, voicing concerns, but also reflexively highlighting positive and diverse images of gay male ageing.

 

Life in Limbo: A Study of Delayed Discharge from a Policy and Patient Perspective - Angela Kydd - University of Aberdeen

This qualitative study took place over a four-year period and explored both the phenomenon of ‘delayed discharge’ and the experience of the frail older people classed as ‘delayed discharges’. The study set out to answer three research questions:

• Given that this is not a new concept, why does the phenomenon and process of delayed discharge remain an issue for the Health Service in Scotland?
• What is life like for frail older people living in this state of transition?
• Can pragmatic guidelines for health care providers working with people in transitional states be designed from answers to the first two questions?

The study borrowed from ethnography, and using the underlying philosophy of symbolic interactionism attempted to view the subject from several different stances. Nine different methods were used to collect the data.

The period of data collection lasted from November 2001 to November 2005, and during this time, the health and welfare state was changing rapidly. Changes were constant and the two most successful methods of keeping up to date were to interview people in the field and to review media reports.

The main findings showed that frail older people in transition were anxious about their futures. However, the findings from the entire study showed that staff were too stressed to be able to provide evidenced-based care for their patients. They were also in transition and their own personal anxieties about organisational changes meant they were unable to support or comfort the frail older people in distress.

The recommendations from this study suggest that qualified staff in health and social work posts, at all levels, need to be supported during periods of change by their seniors. With support, they might support unqualified frontline staff, who in turn will then be able to care for patients in distress.

 

Pensions and Partnerships - Debora Price - University of Surrey

The breadwinner/homemaker relationship is problematic in terms of access to financial resources, but the growth of partnering outside legal marriage and a rise in relationship breakdown makes it increasingly important for women to be able to provide for their own futures.  In the UK, with a policy regime of reliance on the market for the provision of financial welfare in old age, this means that women must be able to participate in private pension savings. 

This thesis uses data from the General Household Surveys 2001 and 2002 to examine the earnings and pension accumulation of working age men and women in Great Britain. Women's individual earnings and pension accumulation remain inadequate for financial security in later life, and having children continues to have a severe impact on both, even for younger cohorts.  Lone mothers and cohabiting mothers who have never married are particularly disadvantaged.  The disadvantages for all mothers in these respects last well into mid-life.

Severe inequalities in earnings within couple households exist for mothers at all levels of the dual-earnings distribution, at all educational levels, and regardless of marital status.  The more financially dependent a woman is on her partner, the less likely she is to contribute to a pension.  Women with high earnings tend to be doubly privileged women: they are likely to have pensions, and their partners are also likely to be high earners with pensions.  In contrast, low waged couples have bleak pension prospects. For men, legal marital status is much more strongly associated with financial advantage and disadvantage, and patterns of inequality, than for women.  Men in first marriages are consistently advantaged in pension terms over men in other forms of relationship, or who are alone, and they also have the most financially unequal relationships.  Divorced lone men are severely disadvantaged in terms of participation in paid work and in pension accumulation. 

These patterns are a result of complex interactions of culture, institution and politics. The consequence, in pension terms, is that women will continue to struggle to provide for themselves in old age.  Moreover the thrust of UK pension policy will tend to exacerbate women's pension disadvantage.

 

Running is my Life: Embodied Agency, Social Change and Identity Amongst Veteran Elite Runners - Emmanuelle Tulle - Glasgow Caledonian

The work presented in this thesis examines experiences of ageing amongst 21 male and female Veteran elite runners. Experiences of ageing continue to be understood within a discourse of decline. The body plays a central role in this process but primarily in its biological manifestations. Sociology has neglected ageing bodies and little is as yet known about the phenomenological dimension of growing older. The ageing literature is beginning to give some attention to the place of the body in experiences of ageing and some theoretical development has been in progress since the pioneering conceptualisation of the modern experience of bodily ageing within the Mask of Ageing perspective. However we need to specify the interaction between bodily experiences and the social location of people as they age. I am proposing to bring to light the complexity of ageing experiences by reconceptualising it within a theoretical framework influenced by the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. This requires paying heed to the phenomenological dimension of bodily use and bodily change but also to the wider cultural and structural landscape of late modernity in which bodily use is embedded. To this end I have chosen to locate my investigation amongst a group of people whose everyday experiences take place in the context of athletics and who thus appear to challenge traditional age-appropriate expectations about appropriate bodily use and dispositions. The findings will reveal the claims for bodily competence made by agers themselves and the self-conscious engagements with the struggle for social and symbolic distinction which this involves. I will propose broadening the concept of habitus proposed by Bourdieu to include age, in order to access the changing nature of embodiment but also the potential for social change made possible by modalities of embodiment which are based on the reconstruction of ageing as ambiguity.

 

Variations in subjective well-being: The role of psychological resilience in older age - Gill Windle - University of Wales-Bangor

Despite a growing interest in what keeps people happy, a psycho-gerontological investigation that simultaneously addresses how lifestyles, economic resources, health and psychological factors affect the subjective well-being of older people has been largely absent from research conducted within Britain. Current thinking on the topic has been driven mainly by USA based research. In addition, little attention has been given to the intervening effects of psychological factors. This research addresses these gaps. It is hypothesised in this work that

• psychological resources central to the self underlie a sense of psychological resilience in older age
• the maintenance of subjective well-being may be preserved through the effects of psychological resilience as an ‘interpretive link’ – the mediation hypothesis
• resilience may protect against factors associated with ageing (e.g. reductions in income, poor health) that may be detrimental to the subjective well-being of an older person – the moderation hypothesis.

Multivariate modelling techniques analysed previously unexplored survey data drawn from a representative population sample of older people aged 50-90 in England, Wales and Scotland (N=1847). Using confirmatory factor analysis, a measure of resilience was developed from the psychological measures and used in subsequent analyses. The results show that although there are differential effects for the relationships across the age groups, it can be concluded that:

• Good health, adequate material resources and social support, few problems with IADL and participation in activities (volunteering and outdoor leisure) were important for both resilience and life satisfaction between the ages of 50-90.
• The mediation analyses implied that in some instances, resilience proved to be the mechanism linking good health, adequate material resources and social support, few problems with IADL and participation in activities (volunteering and outdoor leisure) on the one hand with life satisfaction on the other.
• The moderation analyses demonstrated that a high sense of resilience was able to maintain life satisfaction into the seventieth decade when levels of material resources, IADL and health were poor.
• In terms of the oldest age group, volunteering was a particularly important source of well-being, as were few problems with IADL. This presents a picture of independent, actively involved fourth agers.

The findings have implications for policy and practice. As the consequence of either societal opportunities or constraints, these factors are amenable to influence by government action.

 

Living in bodies, living as bodies: the relationship between body and self at different ages - Mair Underwood - University of Queensland

This thesis explores the various ways that people of different ages feel about, understand, and behave with regards their bodies. That is, how bodies are lived at different ages. The focus is on how individuals negotiate both their embodiment, and the Western culture of the body.

In an attempt to ascertain participant perspectives a grounded theory approach was taken. To ensure that the methodology was commensurate with the key concepts as employed, the more recent constructivist version of this approach was adopted. Fifty-four individual interviews and five focus groups were conducted with individuals aged 20–30, 45–55 and 70+ years.

It was found that the different ways of living the body revolved around differing body-self relations. Specifically, the study found three main orientations to the body:

• The more embodied orientation which results from a complex relationship between a body and a self that are simultaneously separate, interconnected, and one and the same. This way of living the body focuses on the ‘achievement’ of a body that is socially acceptable and concordant with the individual’s sense of self.
• The more Cartesian orientation which results from the combination of a constant self with a changing and inevitable body. The focus is on the separation of body and self as part of the process of accepting and adapting to a limiting body.
• Cartesian resistance which results from the combination of a more Cartesian style body-self relationship (in that they are separated) with an ‘achieved’ body reminiscent of the more embodied orientation. In this variation of living the body the aim is to create a body that serves the self effectively.

The results of this study provide an evidence-base for theoretical discussions of the body, something that they have all too frequently been lacking. But more importantly, the way that the body is lived (that is, diet, exercise, smoking) is proving to be the determinant of health in contemporary Western societies, and thus the results have the potential to inform strategies to improve health outcomes for people of all ages.