Unequal ageing

The untold story of exclusion in old age

Paul Cann, Malcolm Dean, Cann, Paul, Dean, Malcolm

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781847424129
• eBook ISBN: 9781447300595
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gerontology
• Index: Social Sciences

This powerful book analyses the vital dimensions of money, health, place, quality of life and identity, and demonstrates the gaps of treatment and outcomes between older and younger people, and between different groups of older people. Written by leading experts in the field, it provides strong evidence of the scale of current disadvantage in the UK and suggests actions that could begin to change the picture of unequal ageing.

'Unequal ageing' is aimed at all those with a serious interest in the unprecedented challenge of our ageing society. It will be of importance to policy-makers, opinion-formers, and above all to older people themselves.

Foot Notes

Chapter One

¹ Rupert Jones, The Guardian, 3 January 2009.

² Professor Pat Thane, letter to Daily Telegraph, 5 September 2008.

³ Metz, D. and Underwood, M. (2005) Older, richer, fitter: Identifying the customer needs of Britain’s ageing population, London: Age Concern.

⁴ ONS, annual population estimates.

⁵ Original lectures can be found on the BBC website (www.bbc.co.uk).

⁶ Tom Kirkwood, essay in The Observer, 3 April 2005.

⁷ Dean, M. (2003) Growing older in the 21st century, Swindon: ESRC. A summary of the 24 reports of the ESRC Growing Older programme for lay people.

⁸ Metz, D. and Underwood, M. (2005) Older, richer, fitter: Identifying the customer needs of Britain’s ageing population, London: Age Concern.

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Hills, J., Sefton, T. and Stewart, K. (eds) (2009) Towards a more equal society? Poverty, inequality and social policy since 1997, Bristol: The Policy Press, p 171.

¹³ Pat Thane lecture, 26 January 2004: ‘The experience of ageing in Britain: the last 175 years.’

¹⁴ Age Concern and Help the Aged (2009) One voice: Shaping our ageing society, London: Age Concern and Help the Aged. Launch publication for the merger between Age Concern and Help the Aged, 7 April 2009.

¹⁵ Consultative document on ageing, Department of Trade, July 2003, introduced by Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State.

¹⁶ Later published as a pamphlet: Harding, T. (2006) The long and winding road, London: Help the Aged.

¹⁷ UK Commission for Employment and Skills projections for 2007–17.

¹⁸ Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures announced at One Voice conference (Age Concern and Help the Aged) in London, 7 April 2009, by Phil Yeoman, Head of Extending Working Life, DWP.

¹⁹ Neuberger, J. (2008) Not dead yet: A manifesto for old age, London: HarperCollins.

²⁰ Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K. (2009) The spirit level: Why more equal societies almost always do better, London: Allen Lane.

²¹ Child poverty rates: see p 72, Table 4.1tr in DWP (2008) Households Below Average Income: An analysis of the income distribution 1994/5–2006/7, London: DWP. Pensioner poverty rates are on page 22 in Goodman, A., Myck, M. and Shephard, A. (2003) Sharing in the nation’s prosperity? Pensioner poverty in Britain, IFS Commentary 93, London: Institute for Fiscal Studies, March.

²² Hills, J., Sefton, T. and Stewart, K. (eds) (2009) Towards a more equal society? Poverty, inequality and social policy since 1997, Bristol: The Policy Press, p 2.

²³ Hills, J. and Stewart, K. (eds) (2005) A more equal society? New Labour, poverty, inequality and exclusion, Bristol: The Policy Press, p 1.

²⁴ Ibid, p 168.

²⁵ Hills, J., Sefton, T. and Stewart, K. (eds) (2009) Towards a more equal society? Poverty, inequality and social policy since 1997, Bristol: The Policy Press, p 162.

²⁶ OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) (2009) Pensions at a glance 2009: Retirement-income systems in OECD countries (ocde.p4.siteinternet.com/publications/doifiles/812009081P1T004.xls).

²⁷ Brewer, M., Browne, J., Emmerson, C., Goodman, A., Muriel, A. and Tetlow, G. (2007) Pensioner poverty over the next decade: What role for tax and benefit reform?, IFS Commentary 103, London: Institute for Fiscal Studies, July.

²⁸ Help the Aged estimates from DWP (2008) Income-related benefits: Estimates of take-up in 2006/7, London: DWP.

²⁹ ‘Life expectancy at birth and at 65 by local areas in the United Kingdom, 2005–7’, Health Statistical Quarterly, no 40, ONS, Winter 2008.

³⁰ Breeze, E. and Pearce, M. (2006) ELSA wave 2 launch presentation on health (the figures are calculated on the changes between waves 1 and 2). Available on Institute of Fiscal Studies website (www.ifs.org.uk/elsa).

³¹ Marmot, M., Banks, J., Blundell, R., Lessof, C. and Nazroo, J. (eds) (2004) Health, wealth and lifestyles of the older population in England: The 2002 English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, London: Institute for Fiscal Studies.

³² Graham, H. (2007) Unequal lives: Health and socio-economic inequalities, Milton Keynes: Open University Press, pp 156–7.

³³ Raynes, N., Clark, H. and Beecham, J. (eds) (2006) Evidence submitted to the Older People’s Inquiry into ‘That bit of help’, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

³⁴ The state of social care in England, 2006/7, January 2008 and Cutting the...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Front
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of tables and figures
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• One: How social age trumped social class?
• Two: Too tight to mention: unequal income in older age
• Three: The uneven dividend: health and well-being in later life
• Four: No place like home? Housing inequality in later life
• Five: What does it mean to be old?
• Six: A life worth living? Quality of life in older age
• Seven: Why is ageing so unequal?
• Eight: Rewriting the story
• Foot Notes