Well-being Of Older People In Ageing Societies (public Policy And Social Welfare)

"Well-Being of Older People in Ageing Societies poses answers to the question of how we can measure and conceptualize the well-being of older people. It focuses on the future research agenda and policy reforms that will be necessary to maintain a decent well-being for older people, given the context of our ageing populations. This book draws on longitudinal datasets and empirical research on the multidimensional measures of older people's welfare, providing a comparative analysis of social assistance and pensions for older people in the UK and The Netherlands. This title will be essential reading to anyone with an interest in gerontology and the effect society, public policy and governance can have on the welfare of older people."--Provided by publisher "Cover"--"Half Title"--"Title" -- "Copyright" -- "Dedication" -- "Acknowledgements" -- "Contents" -- "List of Figures, Tables and Boxes" -- "Part I: Setting the Context" -- "Chapter 1 Introduction " -- "1.1 Preamble" -- "1.2 Three themes on well-being of older people" -- "Theme I: Multidimensional perspective on well-being" -- "Theme II: Income experience in old age" -- "Theme III: Comparative perspective on income dynamics" -- "1.3 From perception to definition" -- "1.3.1 Older people" -- "1.3.2 Ageing societies" -- "1.4 Datasets in use" -- "1.5 Book overview" -- "Chapter 2 Conceptualising Well-being of Older People" -- "2.1 Introduction" -- "2.2 Well-being as utility from consumption" -- "2.3 Command over resources: the minimum rights approach" -- "2.4 Converting resources to ends: the standard-of-living approach" -- "2.5 Freedom in converting resources to ends: the capability approach" -- "2.6 Well-being with respect to health" -- "2.7 Conclusions" -- "Chapter 3 Methodological Choices in Measuring Well-being" -- "3.1 Introduction" -- "3.2 Measuring and analysing income" -- "3.2.1 Income composition" -- "3.2.2 Choice of time unit" -- "3.2.3 Choice of income unit" -- "3.2.4 Choice of equivalence scales" -- "3.3 Data availability, selection and adaptation" -- "3.3.1 Choice of datasets" -- "3.3.2 The BHPS: an overview" -- "3.3.3 Income data from the BHPS" -- "3.4 Measurement of health using the BHPS" -- "3.5 Conclusions" -- "Appendix 3A: Tables of Chapter 3" -- "Chapter 4 The British Pension and Social Benefit System" -- "4.1 Introduction" -- "4.2 The basic state pension (BSP)" -- "4.2.1 Coverage" -- "4.2.2 Indexation" -- "4.2.3 Contributions" -- "4.2.4 The current level and growth of BSP" -- "4.3 Earnings-related state pensions" -- "4.4 Old age social benefits" -- "4.4.1 Means-tested state benefits" -- "4.4.2 Other benefits "Great strides towards rising human longevity in recent times pose new challenges for policy-makers worldwide. Facing unprecedented rises in public social expenditures and needing to mitigate the moral hazard of poverty in old age, policy-makers require a holistic understanding of determinants of personal resources of older people. To this end, this book provides new insights by reporting research in three themes." In Theme I, Multidimensional well-being of older people, it is demonstrated that with ageing, factors such as ill health and disability become ever more important in determining the personal well-being of older people, and these factors have financial implications not captured by an analysis of income status alone. In Theme II, Income experience in old age, the dynamics of older people's income have been analysed, using descriptive statistics as well as econometric models. This approach broadens the conventional snapshot-type analyses and provides insights about income processes underlying the ageing experience. In Theme III, Comparative perspective on income dynamics, the work reported in the book evaluates how the relative importance of individual attributes and lifecourse events differ in determining the income experience of older people who live in different systems of social insurance and old-age social provisions in Britain and the Netherlands. How can we conceptualize and measure the personal well-being of older people? What future research agenda and policy reforms are necessary to maintain decent well-being for older people, in the context of aging populations? The great strides towards rising longevity made in recent times now pose challenges for policymakers worldwide. Facing unprecedented rises in social expenditures and needing to mitigate the moral hazard of poverty in old age, policymakers require a holistic understanding of the personal resources of older people. To this end, this book provides new insights, which draw on important new longitudinal datasets. Research is undertaken on three themes: the conceptualization and measurement of the multidimensional measures of older people's welfare; the income experience of older people during the aging process; and, the comparative analysis of income experience for older people who live under different institutional arrangements for pensions and social assistance, in the UK and the Netherlands