A summary report of this research is available to download in PDF format and Word format.

Download the full research:

• ‘Life course influences on health and well-being in later life: a review’ (PDF format)
• ‘Life course influences on poverty and social isolation in later life: a secondary analysis’ (PDF format)

Download the presentations from the event (in PowerPoint format):

• Life course influences in later life
  Karen Glaser, Debora Price, Institute of Gerontology, King’s College London
• Life-course events and later-life employment
  Mark Bryan, Mark Taylor, Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex
  and Morten Blekesaune, NOVA (Norwegian social research)

Our final report will be published in December 2009. To request a copy, please email us.

As people live longer, the extension of working life is becoming increasingly important for labour supply, healthy retirement, and sustainable pensions and tax revenues. This seminar debated the major challenges that our society faces; the experiences of older workers; and the changes that are taking place in the labour market.

Download the presentations from the seminar:

• Why the Default Retirement Age should be removed
  Sheila Wild, Head of Earnings and Age Inequality, Equality and Human Rights Commission.
• Presentation
  Michael Rubenstein.
• Older Jobseekers Survey 2008-9
  Chris Ball, Chief Executive, TAEN.
• How to pay for the crisis
  Prof Ray Barrell, National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

A think piece written for this project by Professor Ray Barrell on ‘How to pay for the crisis’ will be available to download shortly.

Increasing longevity has been accompanied by emerging debates about intergenerational equity (fairness in the relationship between generations). This seminar presented a new think piece on the issues and examined the assumptions and beliefs that drive the division of resources between generations at society and family level.

Download the think piece from the seminar.

Intergenerational equity (fairness in the relationship between generations) is a term used in many ways for many different purposes. For this reason, the project team decided to explore this concept in more detail and commissioned a think piece. The attached document describes and reviews different concepts of IGE, examines intergenerational relationships within families and the relation between paid and unpaid work, and finally draws conclusions for the future work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Age Concern and Help the Aged.

Download the executive summary as a PDF or as a Word document. You can also download the full think piece as a PDF.

We are keen to hear your views and opinions on IGE. Email us and we will publish some of your comments here.

News that the Government has proposed a new duty on public authorities to address socio-economic inequalities in the Equality Bill presents a major opportunity for us to move the agenda forward for people of all ages.

This report looks in particular at the effects of inequality when older people access and use public services. Older people are the main users of public services yet to date, very little attention has been paid in Policy and Research literature to socio-economic inequalities between different groups of older people and how these inequalities affect access to and use of public services in later life. This report aims to fill the gap.

It presents findings relating to public services such as health care, social care, housing, community services, transport and technology and draws in part on a literature review at the London School of Economics (see Appendix 1, Methodology, main report).

Continue to the next page to read the Executive Summary. You can also download a copy of the full report in PDF and Word format.

Our first seminar challenged our attitudes about ageing. It examined our assumptions about the physiological and social experience of ageing, and drew out the implications of this for different demographic groups in the context of current political, social and economic change.

Professor Tom Kirkwood CBE, Director of the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University delivered the keynote in which he delivered a new think piece on the future of ageing.

You can also download Professor Kirkwood’s presentation at the seminar.

This seminar profiled new research on service inequalities in old age. It examined the prevalence and nature of inequalities in the use of services among different groups of older people and explored the implications of these inequalities and discrimination for government strategy.

You can download two presentations from the event:

• Chris Sherwood NESTA
• Andrew Harrop, Age Concern and Help the Aged

“The ongoing increase in human life expectancy is without doubt one of the greatest changes to affect humanity in the last two hundred years.”

Professor Tom Kirkwood’s article on ‘The future of ageing’ explores the implications of this, why we should not ignore it and why policymakers, research scientists, industries and the public at large, should embrace it and the challenges it will bring.

The article looks at areas such as the roots of inequality, the opportunities available from novel technologies, evidence-based interventions and the development of policy, and the need for joined-up policy.

Download ‘The future of ageing‘ (PDF).