Introduction

Extending participation and social connectivity is now widely accepted as central to adding life to years as well as healthy years to life, while participation in the life of the community is seen as critical to well-being (Sen, 1992, p 39), and capable of addressing older people's rights, extending inclusion, reducing exclusion, easing demand on national budgets and building social cohesion. The central conundrums of increasing participation and social connectivity are, first, the intermeshing of personal, local, meso and macro level factors in shaping participation and social connectivity, and second, how the drive towards increased participation can be included in framing policy in such a way that participation is individually meaningful, social connectivity is enhanced and benefits flow to participants and to society in general. Underlying the application of the concepts of participation and social connectivity to older people is the idea that old age places people outside the mainstream: that older people's participation and social connectivity is wanting in scale or scope, that they do want or should want to participate more and that it is chiefly the impediment of old age that constrains their participation. Categorised as outside the mainstream, older people become defined by their age rather than those other salient aspects of their social identity, class, sexuality, ethnicity, education, histories and personal outlook that policy makers and implementers find difficult to respond to in relation to older people. This chapter examines older people's experiences of participation and social connectivity across a range of geographical and social locations within the UK and within low and middle-income countries, in order to test conceptualisations of older people's participation and social connectivity against experience, and to begin to trace the individual, local, meso and macro factors and linkages that need to be addressed to extend meaningful participation and engagement for people who happen to be older.