Personal development through the lifespan takes place in the context of the family, which is itself changing over time. Change occurs at three different levels – the institution of the family, dyadic relationships within it, the developing individual. Change at different levels and affecting different individuals is sometimes coordinated but often unsynchronised, with consequences for family members' sense of control and well-being. Using autobiographical material from the Mass-Observation Archive it is possible to examine a range of subjective experience, some of it illuminating themes in the literature of social gerontology, some of it prompting new lines of enquiry. The use of autobiographical material is justified by its richness and capacity to illustrate the uniqueness of experience. The case study method is appropriate for the study of sensitive issues, ambiguous concepts and uncharted areas of experience.

In South Africa the generation gap is seen as the problem of disaffected youth. This paper discusses intergenerational relations from the perspective of the elderly whose social security and happiness in old age is dependent on the mutual family support system. Family solidarity in 300 three-generation urban households was assessed using measures based on ones developed by Mangen, Bengtson, and Landry (1988) and a single item measuring satisfication with family life used in earlier South African quality-of-life studies. Results confirmed that harmonious family living was associated with the subjective well-being of elders. The South African measure of family harmony was most closly related to the affective dimension of the Mangen et al. (1988) family solidarity construct. Good affective and consensual relationships between the middle and top generations made the most significant contributions to satisfactory family life from the viewpoint of elders. Contrary to expectations there was little evidence of strained relationships between the oldest and youngest generation. Findings intimated that the middle generation plays an important role in closing the generation gap in the more cohesive families by promoting mutual respect and understanding between old and young. Although three-generation households may, by definition, represent special cases of family solidarity during the current unrest in South African townships, it is concluded that the findings augur well for family care of the aged.

Although photographs are frequently used to illustrate discussions about ageing they have not been assessed critically as gerontological sources. This paper argues that the pictorial record since the 1840s contains many problems and possibilities. A case study of Victorian Scotland indicates the methodological pitfalls of acknowledging images at face value. Uncritical acceptance of the assumptions of modernisation theory has underlain much of the received wisdom on ageing in former times. More generally, both academics and advocates in Postwar Britain have reworked stereotypes of old age to suit their own aims. Against this, the convergence of reminiscence and a willingness to develop more interactive approaches to understanding the life course allows photographs to provide a resource for interpreting the ageing self. Nevertheless, as the examples show, difficulties again arise as the ambiguity and malleability of images all too easily enables generalised fictions to shroud the diversity of individual experience.

This paper is concerned with intercultural relationships within the trigenerational family. As part of our study of sociostructural changes affecting the family, we have looked at these relationships from a basis of the concepts: generation gap and seriality between generations. The information reported in this paper was obtained from twenty inter-generational triads (ten female, six male, four mixed) who were given a series of highly structured and open ended questions by trained interviewers. The results showed significant differences in the definitions of culture given by the three generations. The most important result in analysing ‘taste cultures’ and cultural activities within trigenerational families is that within the trigenerational family there are varying relationship structures and that these are perceived differently by the different generations. This is attributed to an overall process of individualisation in society. The findings indicate that similar taste cultures and shared activities in grandparent-grandchild generations are not common and that consecutive generations resemble each other more in tastes and activities. In general, the position of the old in relation to the youngest generation can be described as remote. Grandparents are not important in the cultural life of young adult grandchildren and vice versa. On the basis of our findings, it would appear that the family is declining as a factor in the sociocultural integration of the elderly.

Partners and children play a key role in home care for persons suffering from dementia. When we compare the burdens placed on these relatives, we find large differences. On the one hand, these result from actual differences in the care situation. On the other, they arise from the differences in the way the people involved experience more or less comparable circumstances. To determine the sources of the differences in the burden on the relatives, a distinction was made between objective and subjective care-giver burden. Qualitative research, therefore, aimed to provide an understanding of the personal interpretation by the people involved. This was realised in about 40 case studies involving relatives.

All 67-year-old pensioners in a primary care district (N = 142) participating in a multi-disciplinary population study were followed until the age of 83. At 83 years of age, 65 persons had survived and continued to take part in the study. Social, psychological and medical factors predicting survival during the period have previously been reported (Samuelsson et al. 1992). In the present analysis, the same variables at age 67 were used to predict health, measured with six different health indicators, at 83 years. The analysis has been performed separately for women and men. Variables at 67 years of age as determinants for health at age 83 have been identified and ranked through successive selection in a step-wise discriminatory analysis. For women, reported diseases at 67 was a very strong predictor but quite the contrary for men. Blood pressure and sleep medication were strong predictors for men but not for women. Psychological factors were more frequently included in the predictive models for women than for men. Social factors were of comparatively less importance for both men and women. There was greater accuracy in the prediction of health for women. The individual variables most often included in the predictive model for women were coping and reported health at age 67. For men, blood pressure, sleep medication and intelligence were the most frequent predictors. The analysis demonstrated clear sex-specific prediction patterns. When comparing predictors for survival and predictors for differentiated health in the same population no similarities were found.

Twenty-two elderly retired people were interviewed for their beliefs about the sources of wellbeing in old age. Manual and Professional social class responses were compared, controlling for age, gender and health status. Respondents' free discourse was characterised by spontaneous social comparisons of the self with other people. In Social Comparison Theory, these serve as a means of self-assessment or wellbeing-enhance-ment. The comparison statements were analysed by Direction, Target, Dimension, and Wellbeing Yield. Significant class differences were apparent. Both groups compared Downward with others on the Dimensions of ageing, longevity, keeping active, security, and money. The Manual group derived less wellbeing from their Downward comparisons, many of which focused on entitlement to money benefits. The Professional group made more Upward comparisons, focusing on the younger self as Target, and yielding neutral or negative wellbeing. The predominant Upward Dimensions were perceived cognitive and physical condition. The Professionals tended to rationalise cognitive decline, but neither group showed psychological defence against physical decline, using social comparison as a means to objective self-assessment rather than self-enhancement.

This paper looks at the experience of bereavement in old age in a South Wales locality and traces the immediate and long-term effects it has on the bereaved. It examines various categories of bereavement – death of spouse, death of the mother, death of a child, siblings and friends, with death of spouse as specially significant. In each category it closely relates the experience of bereavement to the nature of the relationship formerly maintained, arguing that the significance of bereavement can only be appreciated within the context of social structure which defines the meaning of these relationships. It suggests that the special position occupied by female networks in the social structure enables old women to cope with the effects of bereavement more successfully than old men. For both old men and old women however, the special position they occupy with respect to contemporary society gives death a particular and unique resonance.

It is argued that a spiritual outlook on life may help elderly people to cope constructively with the vicissitudes of life. Many persons who are now in late adulthood and old age developed a relationship with a transcendent reality. This relationship is a core element of their global personal well-being. This paper briefly elaborates some thoughts about the relationship between personal well-being and spirituality in old age. Six themes are focused upon: I. personal well-being as a subjective experience of evaluation; 2. psychological, physical, social, material, cultural and existential well-being as components of global personal well-being; 3. religious or humanistic spirituality; 4. a life enhancing relationship with a transcendent reality in old age; 5. spirituality and spiritual growth require self-care and social support; 6. some possible lines of research.

This paper describes association with changes in functional ability among very elderly people who were interviewed first in 1987 when they were aged 85+, and followed-up in 1990. It focuses, in particular, on those with severe difficulties with ADL. It was notable that while those with chronic problems with disability used more health and social services, few received services specific to rehabilitation and social support (e.g. physiotherapy, occupational therapy and social work), and substantial numbers in this group (30–45%) did not receive any chiropody services; although the provision of instrumental aid with tasks of daily living was relatively high from home help services, and, in particular, from relatives.

In 1990, approximately one out of every three elderly persons in the Netherlands was living alone. This proportion has almost doubled since 1960. This sharp increase in living alone among the elderly has attracted attention in political circles and among policy makers. An understanding of living arrangements of elderly people is critical for a determination of the likely need for public care, such as home help and district nursing, and institutional care. Elderly persons who live alone require public care services sooner, whether or not as supplement to informal care from persons outside the household. This article examines the living arrangements of the elderly in the Netherlands. Special attention is paid to the household structure of unmarried and no longer married elderly persons, and why so many of then live alone. The data used in this study are taken from the 1989/90 Housing Demand Survey (WBO), which is a large-scale sample survey containing approximately 50,000 Dutch households.

In order to analyse the allocation of public care services in the city of Solna, Sweden, and how they changed in response to a rapid growth of the number of elderly people, a comparison was made between two surveys, 1985 and 1991.

The surveys comprised all citizens of Solna who, on the day of the survey, were receiving long-term public medical and/or social care services. Living arrangements and services received were registered together with assessments of social support and disability/dependency. The latter was measured according to a special scale (the ASIM index) and – for 1991 – the Katz index of ADL. The assessments were made by the ordinary staff. The analysis showed that older and non-married persons were more likely to become clients of the public care system. Institutionalisation was also more common among the non-married – especially for men.

Connected to the rapid increase in the number of the very old in the context of limited resources was a sharp decline during the period 1985–1991 in the proportion of the Solna population that received public care services in some form. This decline concerned all age-groups of both sexes, married as well as non-married, but the married were more affected than the non-married – especially among the women. The reductions in the proportion of the population that received care in the home affected mostly married persons in the oldest age group. Reductions in institutionalisation had most impact on very old, non-married men – partly counteracted by increases in the provision of home help. Multivariate analysis showed functional disability – in 1991 dependency in ADL according to Katz - and living arrangements to be the most important variables in explaining the allocation of home help in domiciliary care and sheltered housing.

Older people are increasing in number and proportion of the population in Latin America and, as they do their health needs and social resources are becoming more apparent. In response, gerontologiacal health promotion is emerging as a new field emphasizing the community as a unit of health and the participation of older people in the process. Recognizing the need for more empirical research on the topic, this paper identifies initiatives that promote the health of perople in Costa Rica, Chile, and Argentina, by enabling them to plan programmes, develop services, and advocate change at the community level. It analyzes some of their common themes, and discusses general prospects for the future.

The paper reports on a study carried out in 1990 for the Department of Health looking at the development of local authority multi-purpose residential homes for elderly people in England and Wales. A national survey showed that one in five public sector residential homes for elderly people would soon be multi-purpose. This proportion could be expected to increase in the 1990S. Many of these homes had become the centre for virtually all the community support services for elderly people in the neighbourhood. Despite some obvious management advantages in making use of residential home facilities for older people in the community, there have to be serious reservations about a multi-purpose model. Case studies in six multi-purpose homes suggest that residents themselves may gain little or nothing from this arrangement. Few interact with elderly people from the neighbourhood in the day centre. So much activity on the premises meant that invasions of residents' privacy and space were common.

In this paper, we present findings from a recent national study of elderly persons in Israel which cover two related questions: I. How do spouses' characteristics and activities affect the social participation of married older men and women? 2. Is the effect of husbands' characteristics and activities on wives equivalent or symmetrical to that of wives' characteristics and activities on husbands? The study is based on analyses of data collected in the Israel Survey of Persons Aged 60 and Over in Households, 1985, a national sample survey of households conducted by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics which included approximately 4,500 persons age 60 and over. An innovation of our study has been the design of a data file which enables us to study the activities, role incumbency, and participation of the respondents in relation to the characteristics and activities of their spouses.

We study the performance by husbands and wives of social roles designated as ‘major commitment’ roles (MCRs), in that they are roles performed in social contexts invoving commitments over time to the activity and to the social units in which they are carried out: (a) employment, (b) continued parenting involving assistance to adult children, (c) full housekeeping, and (d) volunteer activity. Characteristics and roles of the wives of older married male respondents, and of the husbands of older married female respondents in Israel, are significantly associated with the respondents' performance of the MCRs which we have identified. However, the ‘marginal effects coefficients’ based on logistic regression equations show that the relative weight of spouses' characteristics and roles is small compared with that of the respondents' own characteristics and other competing or mutually supportive roles. There are both symmetries and assymmetries in the patterns of effects of husbands' and wives' characteristics and roles on prevalences of MCRs among the older married respondents.

Discrimination against old age and work with elderly people are evident in the practices and organisation of caring professions, of which social work may be taken as an example because of its central role in community care provision. This article examines the implications for the status of professional social work with elderly people of recent proposals to develop the role of care manager in place of the case management model developed in Kent and elsewhere. It is argued that such a move derives from managerial concerns, which ignore the likely consequences for retrenching ageism and other forms of discrimination in services for older people. It is concluded that more careful consideration will be required concerning the context in which new professional models are being developed, if these discriminations are not to be reproduced and reinforced, as well as the benefits from case management systems being lost.

In this commentary on recent planning for multidisciplinary research on ageing in the United States, we argue that Sir Douglas Black's pessimistic conclusion about the irrelevance of such planning is off the mark. Created by the U.S. Congress in 1975, the National Institute on Ageing (NIA) was a novelty in the National Institutes of Health. NIA was mandated to have a broadly multidisciplinary research agenda that included behavioural and social sciences and to produce periodic reports to the Congress on a consensual agenda for future research. Two previous research agendas were developed internally by NIA. The recently released third agenda, which is of interest here, was organized externally by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Academy of Sciences. While the subagendas in ageing research for basic biology, clinical medicine, and health services research will be of interest to some, the focus here is specifically on the behavioural and social scientific agenda. High priority substantive issues were identified. Beyond the building of a consensus concerning research priorities, other functions of national research planning are identified in the field of ageing.

Ageing has been referred to as a spiritual journey. Empirical data from gerontological research and paractice literature on the phenomenon of late-life reminiscence reveal a sense of self as process, and ageing as a spiritual journey for a number of older persons. The empirical data experiential reports on reminiscence from the elderly themselves point to a life trajectory of ‘joruney’ of the self that moves from a possessive attachment to an identification with the physical self, significant others, and material belongings to a view of self as a process, as ‘being’ rather than ‘having’ within and as part of a larger process. A process conception of the self derived from William James, contemporary social science, and process theology is delineated to explain the nature of this journey and this process. Two older women who illustrate the process conception of self in their reminiscences are presented, followed by a discussion of the spiritual implications of this conception.

Expanding longevity among elderly people and fertility decline are contributing to the ageing of Singapore's population. By 2030, the proportion of persons aged 60 and above will be 26% of the total population. A national policy on elderly persons was formulated in 1989 which incorporated four issues: employment of elderly persons in the workforce; attitudes toward elderly people; community care; and residential care. This paper discusses each of these agenda with the view of assessing their strengths and weaknesses. The section on residential care is supported by empirical data. The paper concludes that elderly people in Singapore suffer from a high degree of enforced dependence which will need to be reviewed. In particular, a consultative approach in keeping with the more liberal attitude of the second generation leadership will help Singapore to achieve higher standards of care for an increasingly affluent elderly population.

This article attempts to highlight the pressing need for social work to take more account of the existence of alcohol problems being experienced by many elderly people. Surveying the available sketchy data, it would appear that perhaps as many as 15% of elderly social work clients may have alcohol related problems. The article continues by considering whether a discernable pattern of elderly drinking is identifiable, concluding that the greatest problems relate to the severity rather than numbers having alcohol related problems, also coupled with an inability to access existing treatment services. Additionally, the article contends that there are ethical pitfalls in promoting interventions which rest upon stereotypical assumptions or purely technical considerations. In conclusion some of the main implications of the survey for social work practice are drawn out.