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Generational conflict, consumption and the ageing welfare state in the United Kingdom
- Authors:
- HIGGS Paul, GILLEARD Chris
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 30(8), November 2010, pp.1439-1451.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
In the UK, the welfare state is now over 60 years old. Those born into, grown up with, and now growing old within its influence are a unique group. These people benefit from healthier childhoods and better education than previous generations. Whilst it is accepted that they have done well under the welfare state, some critics have argued that these advantages are at the expense of younger cohorts. The very success of this welfare generation is perceived as undermining the future viability of the welfare state, and some argue that the current levels of income and wealth enjoyed by older cohorts can only be sustained by cutbacks in entitlements for younger cohorts. This will lead to a growing ‘generational fracture’ over welfare policy. This article challenges this position, and argues that both younger and older groups find themselves working out their circumstances in conditions determined more by the contingencies of the market than by social policy.
The power of silver: age and identity politics in the 21st century
- Authors:
- GILLEARD Chris, HIGGS Paul
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Aging and Social Policy, 21(3), July 2009, pp.277-295.
- Publisher:
- Routledge
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
Pensioner political movements emerged in the interwar years in America and Europe. Documentary and empirical analyses confirm the influential role such movements played in helping shape the postwar social security systems of Western societies. Pensioner movements, qua pensioner movements, have failed to retain their influence, despite that “old age” and its demographic significance have become more salient. Three explanations for this are proposed: the first concerns the failure of old age to connect with the generational ethos of identity politics; the second reflects the nature of the actors now involved in the governance of old age; and the third concerns the individualization of retirement as a phase of life.
Ageing, corporeality and social divisions in later life
- Authors:
- GILLEARD Chris, HIGGS Paul
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 37(8), 2017, pp.1681-1702.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
This paper concerns the social divisions of later life. Although research in this field has focused on class, gender and, more recently, sexuality as sources of division in later life, the division between the fit and the frail has tended to be ignored or viewed as an outcome of these other divisions. This paper challenges this assumption, arguing that corporeality constitutes a major social division in later life. This in many ways prefigures a return to the 19th-century categorisation of those ‘impotent through age’, whose position was among the most abject in society. Their ‘impotence’ was framed by an inability to engage in paid labour. Improved living standards during and after working life saw age's impotence fade in significance and in the immediate post-war era, social concern turned towards the relative poverty of pensioners. Subsequent demographic ageing and the expanding cultures of the third age have undermined the homogeneity of retirement. Frailty has become a major source of social division, separating those who are merely older from those who are too old. This division excludes the ‘unsuccessfully’ aged from utilising the widening range of material and social goods that characterise the third age. It is this social divide rather than those of past occupation or income that is becoming a more salient line of fracture in later life. (Publisher abstract)
Interrogating personhood and dementia
- Authors:
- HIGGS Paul, GILLEARD Chris
- Journal article citation:
- Aging and Mental Health, 20(8), 2016, pp.773-780.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
Objectives: To interrogate the concept of personhood and its application to care practices for people with dementia. Method: The authors outline the work of Tom Kitwood on personhood and relate this to conceptualisations of personhood in metaphysics and in moral philosophy. Results: The philosophical concept of personhood has a long history. The metaphysical tradition examines the necessary and sufficient qualities that make up personhood such as agency, consciousness, identity, rationality and second-order reflexivity. Alternative viewpoints treat personhood as a matter of degree rather than as a superordinate category. Within moral philosophy personhood is treated as a moral status applicable to some or to all human beings. Conclusion: In the light of the multiple meanings attached to the term in both metaphysics and moral philosophy, personhood is a relatively unhelpful concept to act as the foundation for developing models and standards of care for people with dementia. Care, the author suggest, should concentrate less on ambiguous and somewhat abstract terms such as personhood and focus instead on supporting people's existing capabilities, while minimising the harmful consequences of their incapacities. (Edited publisher abstract)
Leisure activities and retirement: do structures of inequality change in old age?
- Authors:
- SCHERGER Simone, NAZROO James, HIGGS Paul
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 31(1), January 2011, pp.146-172.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
This study highlighted the relationship between old age, retirement and social inequalities, as represented by participation in leisure activities. It considered whether old age, and particularly the transition into retirement, have an effect on participation in three selected activities (having a hobby, being a member of a club, and an index of participation in cultural events), and also whether the social inequalities underlying these activities change with older age and retirement. The empirical investigation uses data from the first two waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Findings suggested that different socio-economic backgrounds of different age groups explained a considerable part of the observed age differences in these activities. Analyses showed that respondents tended to continue their activities regardless of changes in work and age, with two exceptions, namely that retirement was positively related to having a hobby, and those who stopped working because of an illness experienced a significant decline in all three of the examined categories of activity.
Charity or entitlement? Generational habitus and the welfare state among older people in North-east England
- Authors:
- MOFFATT Suzanne, HIGGS Paul
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 41(5), October 2007, pp.449-464.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Current UK policies aimed at reducing pensioner poverty involve targeting those in greatest need by supplementing their incomes with means-tested welfare benefits. It is believed that such policies provide more resources for those in greatest need. However, non-uptake of state welfare benefits by many older UK citizens exacerbates the widening income gap between the richest and poorest pensioners. The authors examine the underlying beliefs and discourses among those currently in retirement who lived through a time when welfare programmes had more of a putative abstract universalism than is now the case. Based on the narratives of people aged over 60 in North-east England, the study shows how the collective forces of structure and individual practice in relation to welfare accumulate over a lifetime and influence the ways in which people interact with the welfare system in later life. Results find that the reasons for the apparent lack of agency among older people in relation to claiming benefit entitlements are linked to the particular social, economic and political circumstances which have prevailed at various points prior to and since the inception of the UK welfare state. The authors argue that the failure of some older citizens to operate as citizen consumers can be conceptualized in terms of a generational welfare ‘habitus’, the consequences of which are likely to exacerbate inequalities in later life.
The shifting sands of time: results from the English longitudinal study of ageing on multiple transitions in later life
- Authors:
- HYDE Martin, HIGGS Paul
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing International, 29(4), 2004, pp.317-332.
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Place of publication:
- New York
Old age is becoming a time of transitions (and instability) as the labour market participation and the family arrangements of older people become more varied and as older people themselves become more mobile and healthier than ever before. Many studies exist that illustrate the improving health of the older population, their changing patterns of work, residence and family. However few studies have had the opportunity to look at how changes in one dimension are related to changes in others. The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) is the largest study of older people in England and contains data on the demographic, employment, housing and health characteristics of over 11,000 people aged 50 and over. Using data from the first wave of data collection and baseline data from the Health Surveys for England (from which the ELSA sample was drawn) the authors have looked at transitions over five dimensions amongst the over 50s in England: transitions in labour market position, health status, marital status, household composition and residential location. Transitions in each of the dimensions were explored for the sample as a whole and then by sex and by cohort. Finally the relations between the different transitions were explored. The results show the majority of the sample experience change in at least one dimension and around one quarter in two dimensions. There were few differences between the sexes, although women were more likely to experience a change in labour market position. However there were differences between the age groups. Those in the older groups were less likely to experience transitions, apart from transitions in health statuses. Overall the data confirm that later life is a dynamic portion of the life course.
Researching quality of life in early old age: the importance of the sociological dimension
- Authors:
- HIGGS Paul, et al
- Journal article citation:
- Social Policy and Administration, 37(3), June 2003, pp.239-252.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
Measurement of quality of life has become a major feature of much social and epidemiological research in health and social care settings. It is seen as an important alternative to more process-based outcome measures but remains poorly defined. A major weakness is the absence of any coherent theoretical underpinning whether sociological, psychological or philosophical. Into this conceptual vacuum proxies for quality of life have been introduced. Quality of life [QoL] research into older populations has focused on measures of health and illness as equivalents of QoL. This paper argues that this response is inadequate as it reduces old age to a dimension of health, disability and disease. Instead, we argue that it is necessary to create a theoretically based measure of QoL in early old age which relates to those aspects of later life that are not defined by health. We present a model of QoL that is derived from aspects of contemporary social theory as they relate to the ontology of late modernity. In particular, we utilize a model based upon needs satisfaction. The model contains four domains: Control, Autonomy, Pleasure and Self-realization. The measure consists of a 19-item scale. The four domains load on to a single latent QoL factor. The authors argue that the CASP 19 scale offers an approach to QoL that integrates a sociologically based model of quality of life with a meaningful and valid research instrument.
Citizenship and old age: the end of the road?
- Author:
- HIGGS Paul
- Journal article citation:
- Ageing and Society, 15(4), December 1995, pp.535-550.
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
Concerned with the inter-linked issues of citizenship and the structured dependency of older people within Social Gerontology. It argues that implicit in much British Social Gerontology is a strategy of advancing the wellbeing of elderly people through the extension of citizenship rights. Absence of these rights lead to poverty, exclusion and ageism being commonplace experiences of large sections of the older population. This approach draws heavily on the ideas regarding social citizenship of T.H. Marshall who has influenced much mainstream social policy in Britain since 1945. Changes to the Welfare State since 1979 have seriously questioned the validity of this approach and many of these criticisms apply to the structured dependency approach. Recent work on citizenship can help us to see how the relationship between old age and citizenship has changed and how the relationship between old age and citizenship has changed and how far theory in social gerontology needs to change to take account of these new circumstances.