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Environment and identity in later life: a cross-setting study
- Author:
- ESRC GROWING OLDER PROGRAMME
- Publisher:
- University of Sheffield. Department of Sociological Studies
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 4p.
- Place of publication:
- Sheffield
For most older people, the place where they live is the centre of their everyday life. Homes and neighbourhoods are invested with personal and social meaning, and they have particular characteristics that can affect continuing independence and well-being. Older people live in all kinds of places, including 'ordinary' and 'special' housing providing different levels of accommodation and care; domestic and nondomestic. They live in cities, towns and the countryside; alone and with other people. In extreme old age, a greater proportion of the population live in non-domestic age-segregated settings. This research aimed to advance our understanding of the connections between living environments and the maintenance of identity and well-being in later life; and to develop personally relevant tools for evaluating different kinds of living places. These living places were taken to include the dwelling itself, its setting, and the spaces that connect and separate inside and outside; private and public. The study included a wide range of dwellings and three different locations were chosen to take in metropolitan; urban/sub-urban; and small town/village/semi-rural places. These were the north London Borough of Haringey; the town of Bedford, and villages and small towns within the southern part of Northamptonshire.
Older people in deprived neighbourhoods: social exclusion and quality of life in old age
- Author:
- ESRC GROWING OLDER PROGRAMME
- Publisher:
- University of Sheffield. Department of Sociological Studies
- Publication year:
- 2003
- Pagination:
- 4p.
- Place of publication:
- Sheffield
This research examined the circumstances of older people living in socially deprived areas of three English cities. In seeking to provide new insights into the nature of inequalities within older age, the study addressed the conditions of social exclusion in deprived urban neighbourhoods and the processes that contribute to social exclusion in later life. The focus on older people in deprived neighbourhoods is closely tied to contemporary public policy concerns. In recent years, such neighbourhoods have been subject to considerable social policy intervention, linked to attempts to reduce the geographical divide between Britain's most deprived areas and the 'mainstream of society'. In this respect, the research sought to examine the degree to which residence in an area of concentrated poverty might compound the impact on older people of other forms of social exclusion, and lead to a diminished quality of life. The research was undertaken in the three most deprived electoral wards in Liverpool, Manchester and the London Borough of Newham. Data collection consisted of a survey of 600 people aged 60 and over in the three cities, and semi-structured interviews with 130 people in the same age group.