Search

Drawing on the revived literature on the subjective dimension of ageing, this paper investigates whether people aged 65+, usually defined as old, do actually feel old and which events they associate with feeling old. Logistic models are used on unique data from the 2013 survey called 'I Do Not Want to Be Inactive', conducted on individuals aged 65–74 in Italy (N = 828). It is found that a large proportion of respondents do not feel old at all. The analyses show that women are more likely than men to feel old and to think that society considers them old. While men feel old mainly when they retire, women associate this feeling with loneliness, loss of independence and death of loved ones. Higher-educated people are less likely to associate feeling old with loneliness and boredom than their lower-educated counterparts. The findings have important implications for the conceptualisation of ageing. Most people who are old according to the standard threshold of 65 do not consider reaching this age as a distinctive marker of old age in their lifecourse. This suggests that absolute thresholds for setting the start of old age are questionable. Feeling old seems to be mainly influenced by events, such as retirement and death of loved ones, hinting to the importance of the social construction of ageing in addition to its biological dimension. Researchers and policy makers are encouraged to give more attention to layperson views on ageing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at how retirement timing is changing in Italy. A first aim is descriptive and it is to identify recent trends in retirement age, following the pension reform. Then the focus is on factors which may favour or hinder the extension of the working career of older workers. They are studied by looking at the reasons for retirement, introducing the distinction between voluntary and involuntary retirement, and some predictors of retirement. Some of them relate to the work history of individuals, in particular the stability/instability of careers due to episodes of unemployment. The level of education and gender, two variables that may affect the employability of older workers, have also been considered. The study is based on a longitudinal analysis (Kaplan–Meier survival estimates of transition to retirement and binomial logit discrete-time model for the analysis of retirement predictors) of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Job Episodes Panel data. They refer to a sample of 1,999 individuals born between 1911 and 1959. Although the various pension reforms initiated in Italy in the 1990s have not yet been fully implemented, retirement age is rising, even in the case of involuntary retirement. Regarding work history, the advantages of a working career with a small number of unemployment episodes emerge from the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the prospective increase in the numbers of older adults in Europe and of conflicting findings regarding recent disability trends, the present study uses cross-sectional data from four waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), covering the period 2004–2013, and aims at the assessment of trends in disability by sex and broad age group (50–64 and 65 and over) for the ten countries participating in all waves, based on four different measures: limitations in activities of daily living (ADLs), limitations in instrumental ADLs, mobility difficulties and the Global Activity Limitation Indicator. The analysis uses logistic regression models adjusted for age and, subsequently, also for chronic conditions. The findings indicate improvements both in mild/moderate activity restrictions and in functional limitations for several countries, especially among men and women aged 65 and over. Regarding severe disability (ADLs) there is mostly a lack of any significant trend and only a few declines. In several instances, the observed trends are linked to changes in chronic conditions; significant improvements net of chronic conditions are found mainly in Sweden but also in the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Italy and France. Overall, the estimated trends often differentiate by country, age group and sex while they depend upon the specificities of the measures used in the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]