Tom Scharf and Norah Keating introduce us to the debates surrounding exclusion and inclusion in later life within a comprehensive global context. The book takes a multidimensional lifecourse perspective, addressing the drivers as well as policy and practice responses. The authors of each chapter offer us a better understanding of the concepts of inclusion and exclusion through issues such as poverty and economic recession, migration, the family, the built environment and human rights and place exclusion in a truly global context with reference to developing countries, the Asia-Pacific rim, as well as Europe. Consequently, the book advances our theoretical understanding,...

Social, economic and demographic trends associated with population ageing have the collective potential to increase dramatically the exclusion of older adults from societies’ major institutions and resources. In this respect, older people are especially prone to the recent volatility in the always-cyclical economic environment that results from increasingly enmeshed world economies (Jenson, 2004). The economic decline that began in 2008 with the collapse of major financial institutions and subsequent attempts to reduce the over-indebtedness of many Western nations has fundamentally changed the context of debates relating to population ageing. In times of austerity and growing economic instability, the potential risks...

The focus of this chapter is on the challenge to policies aimed at removing social exclusion, faced with a context of economic recession and continued pressures from global economic and social change. As the editors note in Chapter One of this book, issues concerning the marginalisation of older people have tended to be pushed aside in a public discourse that has focused on demographic change as a major contributory factor – if not cause – of current economic ills. By the same token, the extent to which the global economic crisis will increase financial and related problems experienced by particular groups of...

The globalisation of international migration flows is changing the demographics of ageing populations across the world and the ethnic composition of most societies (Castles and Miller, 1998). Even if some regions of the world are more affected than others, few societies are entirely exempted from this phenomenon. With specific respect to Europe, Muus (2001) has argued that the globalisation of international migration has transformed the European Union into a de facto region of immigration. This is why Warnes et al (2004) have proposed that this phenomenon is as important to the study of ageing and old age as population ageing...

Development studies offers a specific set of perspectives on poverty, deprivation and welfare, which take particular account of conditions of generalised scarcity, limited access to salaried labour and weak formal sector institutions (Gough and Wood, 2004). While a great deal of the literature about development focuses on resources and resource deficits, the relational dimensions of development and underdevelopment are increasingly under the spotlight. New theoretical frameworks, such as Amartya Sen’s (1999) work on capabilities, functionings and entitlements, discussed in more detail in Chapter Five, have found fertile ways of combining attention on resources and relations. These, more comprehensive, approaches demonstrate...

The contexts in which the future generation of older people will be living — and for which we have evidence on poverty and the shifts that are likely to happen in their future income entitlements — are precarious. Europe’s pension systems still have a long way to go to reach the goal of securing financial sustainability, making it difficult to be entirely optimistic about the future. The financial crisis of 2008/09 arising from failures in the regulation of banks in a number of Western nations, the ensuing economic recession of 2009 and 2010, and then the most recent public finance and Euro...

Social interaction, understood as the engagement in meaningful relations with others, is an important element when considering the concept of social exclusion (Burchardt et al, 2002). The absence or poor quality of contact with significant others — family, friends, work colleagues and community groups — is widely acknowledged as being a key indicator of social exclusion (Hills et al, 2002). Although social interaction takes place in many different settings, family relationships provide one of the main contexts within which people act towards or respond to others (Allan, 1999). Families, therefore, fulfil many tasks that mitigate the risk of social exclusion. They are...

Social exclusion involves restrictions on social contact and social relations (Littlewood and Herkommer, 1999). For many older people, this may mean fewer opportunities to interact with relatives, friends or neighbours. Like social ostracism, it can leave the individual in a state of entrapment, isolated from society’s general activities (Lee, 2001) and with ongoing reminders ‘of their own failures … and with inescapable proof of their inability to alter the unwanted circumstances of their lives’ (Pearlin et al, 1981, p 340).

There has been growing interest worldwide, and especially in the Asia-Pacific and its Chinese societies, in changes in inter-family and...

In Europe, people are living longer and in better health than ever before (Jagger et al, 2011). The rise of multigeneration societies has created the potential for unprecedented forms of exclusion and discrimination that are intertwined with age, giving rise to new images of ageing and old age and to different attitudes towards old age among older and younger persons. Yet it would be unwise to conceive of ageing per se as a cause of exclusion. In fact, the problem of social exclusion based on age may take different forms in different countries, reflecting their diverse age profiles and expectations...

Much of the discussion of social exclusion highlighted in this book has emphasised macro issues that influence opportunities for older adults to experience full citizenship. Global patterns of changes in the political economy (Chapter Two), of adherence to strict rules of filial piety (Chapter Seven) and of widespread migration in the face of economic recession, political turmoil and natural disasters (Chapter Three), all point to risks of exclusion of older adults.

At a more micro level, the residential context is both immediate and important in shaping older adults’ ability to participate in society (Scharf et al, 2002, 2005). Given the...

The exploration of global issues relating to ageing and social exclusion, undertaken by the contributors to this book, has resulted in convergences of theoretical perspectives and substantive understandings. Equally, it has highlighted regional and disciplinary differences in the importance of the multiple domains of exclusion and beliefs about appropriate policy responses. The authors have illustrated the need to be more critical in our exploration of inequalities among older adults and in the methodological rigour that is a precursor to filling knowledge gaps around the domains of exclusion and the risks for experiencing them. In this chapter, we address these issues,...