Engagement Matters
Spousal Care and Marital Quality in Later Life: A Longitudinal Analysis View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ursula Henz
Living with a partner can have multiple positive influences on individual health and well-being but these effects are conditional on the quality of the partnership. One of the challenges to marital quality in older couples can arise from spousal caregiving where caregiver’s frailty and long caregiving hours can lead to stress and resentment. Caregiving and care receiving can also disrupt couple relationships by challenging long-established marital roles. The first aim of the paper is to describe the prevalence of spousal care in elderly couples in the UK, its intensity and its socio-demographic patterns. The second aim is to test whether and how spousal caregiving and receiving affect older people’s marital quality. Drawing on a life-course perspective, the paper derives hypotheses about factors that threaten or protect the quality of marriages of spousal carers. The first wave of Understanding Society comprises more than 4,000 couples aged 55 or older, which can be followed for up to ten further panel waves. In the first wave, twenty percent of these couples reported spousal caregiving. Descriptive statistics are used to develop profiles of spousal caregiving among older couples. The effects of spousal caregiving on marital quality are estimated from a fixed-effects panel model. Initial analyses show that women provide more care for their partners than vice versa. Individuals in higher-status groups provide less spousal care than those in lower status groups. Caring for a partner does not affect partnership quality. However, partnership cohesion declines when spouses cared for many years or for long hours.
Featured Ageing Population Policy Implications for the 2030 Agenda View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Claudia Ribeiro Pereira Nunes
By 2030, older persons are expected to account for over 25 per cent of the population in Europe and Northern America, 17 per cent in Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, and 6 per cent in Africa. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development sets out a universal plan of action to achieve sustainable development in a balanced manner and seeks to realize the human rights of all segments of society, at all ages, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable, the ageing population. Ageing poses several challenges for governments, society and older persons, which require urgent policy responses. Anticipatory policy measures prepare countries for meeting these challenges. According to UN and OCDE reports, National Public policies preparing for an elderly population is vital to the achievement of the integrated 2030 Agenda, with ageing cutting across, at least, the goals of poverty eradication (SDG1), good health (SDG 3), gender equality (SDG 5), economic growth and decent work (SDG 8), reduced inequalities and sustainable cities (SDG 11). This research presents how the SDG's opportunities and contributions can affect older women and men in our society. The methodology is the quantitative analysis and exploratory study to help build an epistemic community where we can make linkages across SDG public policies in the interdisciplinary context.
Personalised Support for Informal Caregivers of Older People with Dementia: The Integrated Digital System DemiCare View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Renna Roberta, Alessandra Raccicchini, Paciaroni Lucia, Maria Gabriella Melchiorre, Giovanni Lamura, Gris Francesca, Serena Cancellieri
The DemiCare project is funded by the AAL research programme of the European Union, and aims at developing a technology-based solution to improve the quality of life and to promote healthy and active ageing among people with dementia (PwD) and their informal caregivers. By means of a consortium of partners from the Netherlands, Romania, Austria, and Italy, DemiCare uses AI-based technologies for providing personalized information through an ad-hoc App, to support the well-being of informal caregivers of older PwD. This integrated solution includes two devices (a smart wristband and an insole) that are connected to a smartphone App with two main functions: to monitor the PwD's vital parameters, walking, location, and health status; and to offer targeted contents with respect to dementia and its consequences and management. Through DemiCare, caregivers will be able to consult personalized contents via the App, that are updated according to the changing conditions of the cared-for PwD or of the caregiver’s needs. To develop the system, an increasing number of end users is involved in four successive steps: a co-design phase, a lab and a wearability study, a pilot and a concluding field trial. This will allow to learn gradually as much as possible about the needs of PwDs and of their informal caregivers that can be met by the proposed system. At the end, it is expected to achieve an effective solution that will contribute to improve informal caregivers’ ability to cope with their role as caregivers for a PwD.
