Embargoes until 00:01hrs Monday 1 December 2003
Older people in Britain are happier, healthier, and more resourceful than is generally supposed, but the message from the UK's biggest ever study of the quality of life in old age - the four-year Growing Older Programme funded by the Economic and Social Research Council - is that the Government needs to do more to ensure that the growing numbers of older people have a better life.
While people are living longer - life expectancy went up by 25 years in the last century - older people still live in a climate that is characterised by prejudice, discrimination and social exclusion, with people over 80 (the fastest rising segment of the population) hit hardest of all.
Summarising the wealth of findings generated by the programme in a new publication Growing Older in the 21st Century, Malcolm Dean, an assistant editor at The Guardian, likens this 'ageism' in some respects to racism - less pernicious than the most deliberate elements of racism but still degrading. He calls for older people to be reintegrated into mainstream public services rather than being slotted in for separate, often second rate, treatment, and believes tougher measures are necessary to ensure that older people are not only protected from discrimination in employment (along the lines of the new EU directive) but also to redress all too common discrimination in housing, transport and other public services.
The Growing Older Programme had two objectives: to identify and scrutinise aspects of the quality of life of older people and try to contribute to policy and practice aimed at improving the quality of later life. The 24 research projects included:
- several large scale surveys, one of the biggest contacting more than 8,000 people aged 75 and over in 23 doctors' general practices, which was the source of deep concern about inequality in old age;
- identifying problems that older people encounter in using public transport, with train and bus operators seen to regard the old and disabled as a 'nuisance';
- revealing the extent of social exclusion borne by older people in poor city areas;
- the particular problems of the growing number of older people from ethnic minorities;
- the positive side of getting old, including taking part in learning, and the support of church going for many; and
- coping with bereavement.
Being old is not the same for everybody - this may be obvious, but the research found this is often ignored by public agencies, which tend to group all older people together. In other respects, there are similarities between very different groups of people who only have age in common, for instance, the importance of family, health and the home in their well being which was most often cited as relevant in determining the quality of the lives of older people.
Older people are often more satisfied with their lives than expected, even by those who do not enjoy good health.
One large study among younger 'older people' (65-69) found 75 per cent rating their lives overall as 'so good it could not be better' or as 'very good'. This satisfaction rate declined, however, to a third to a half of those in older groups. Many older people still got satisfaction from looking back over their lives. Over half taking part in one survey said that they had done most or all of the things they had wanted to do in life. Only 10 per cent went to the other extreme saying that they had done few or none of the things they had wanted to do.
The loss of a partner was found not necessarily to have the devastating effect that might be assumed. Some men and women even emerged after a time to experience "positive growth and reintegration that provided a new identity and a sense of achievement". And the longer the period that they had been bereaved, the better they coped.
About nine per cent of people over retirement age are still working. But work can enhance or hinder a person's quality of life. The people over retirement age who are still working recorded the highest levels of 'well-being' but those who had been made to retire (this form of discrimination will soon be abolished) often felt very differently. Others who continued working because they needed the money meanwhile recorded 'poorer psychological health'. Part time working by people over retirement age was seen as particularly agreeable. Another study on work showed that people who felt they had a choice, to stay on or to retire, had a significantly higher quality of life, whatever they chose, than those who felt they had been forced into the decision.
Many older people still live in conditions of deprivation and poverty and social exclusion, and the older the person, the greater the deprivation. This was revealed in a three year study of the old living in poor wards in Liverpool, Manchester and London (Newham) which identified 70 per cent living with some form of social exclusion. And some four million pensioners live in the 88 most deprived wards in England. Nearly half the people in this study were poor, which is twice the poverty rate nationally among pensioners. Almost half of them had not bought clothes in the previous year and 15 per cent had gone occasionally without buying food. One fifth lacked contact with children, relatives, friends or neighbours.
Crime is also feared. In this study, 21 per cent of people living in old people's homes said they had been burgled in the last year or two. (This was in contrast to the 2001 British Crime Survey, which suggested old people's homes nationally have a below average burglary rate of 2.2 per cent.) Forty per cent were worried that they would suffer break-ins and only seven per cent said they would feel safe out alone after dark.
Older people from ethnic minorities suffer a disproportionate amount of social exclusion, poverty and crime within these areas. Racism and discrimination were also evident in another study of minority older people in the Sheffield area. More generally among newer immigrants is the feeling of powerlessness. The findings suggest that this category of older people are even more diverse than younger groups. They suffer more inequality and bigger differences in the quality of life. Too often, they are seen as a homogeneous body when they should be seen as a group with many different culture, class and races.
The research warns of the impending poverty of some relatives who care for older people, who are sometimes old people themselves, or sometimes in mid life and have left jobs prematurely in order to do the looking after. Some of these 'Mid-life' carers, particularly women, should be able to benefit from schemes like those which government has agreed for people with childcare commitments, for instance, long term career breaks.
For further information...
... on the Growing Older Programme and Conference, which takes place on 1 December 2003 in central London, please contact:
Professor Alan Walker, Director, ESRC Growing Older Programme, Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield. Telephone: 0114 222 6467 or Email: Marg.Walker@sheffield.ac.uk
Download a PDF file of Growing Older in the 21st Century by Malcolm Dean.
The ESRC Press Office can also be contacted, Telephone: 01793 413119 or 413122
Notes for editors
- The Growing Older Programme is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The Programme Director is Professor Alan Walker from the University of Sheffield. More information about the programme can be obtained from their website www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gop or by email: marg.walker@sheffield.ac.uk
- The ESRC is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It has a track record of providing high-quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC invests more than £53 million every year in social science research. At any time, its range of funding schemes may be supporting 2,000 researchers within academic institutions and research policy institutes. It also funds postgraduate training within the social sciences thereby nurturing the researchers of tomorrow. The ESRC website address is www.esrc.ac.uk