Persistent concerns about loneliness and social isolation in later life have prompted increasing attention to the social and environmental factors that enable or constrain connection. Yet, while previous research has identified community and societal determinants of social connection, little is known about how these factors interact dynamically with individual and interpersonal circumstances to shape older adults’ lived connection experiences. This study addresses this knowledge gap by examining how older Australians perceive and experience environmental influences on their social connectedness, and how factors across multiple ecological levels work together to create or hinder opportunities for connection. Four focus groups were conducted with 15 participants, aged 60 years and over, from metropolitan and regional areas in New South Wales, Australia, to explore how participants described the role of different factors in their connection experiences. Participants identified a range of influences across individual, interpersonal, community and societal levels, including meaningful roles, community spaces, local businesses and transport accessibility. Three patterns of cross-level interaction were revealed: the interplay between personality and community infrastructure; the multi-level role of digital technology; and the cascading influence of policy frameworks shaping community participation opportunities. By uncovering how factors interact dynamically across social-ecological levels, this study advances understanding of the contexts that foster or constrain social connection in later life. The findings contribute to ongoing debates in social gerontology by demonstrating that loneliness and social isolation are best addressed through coordinated, multi-level interventions that align individual, community and policy environments to promote healthy ageing in place.

Ageing is shaped by biological and cultural narratives that influence perceptions of older adults’ wellbeing. Dominant narratives often reinforce ageist stereotypes, equating older adults with frailty and dependency. This study explores how artificial intelligence (AI) art could shape cultural narratives of ageing through a case study of Auntieverse, an AI art project featuring Singaporean auntie figures. Addressing the gap in understanding AI-generated imagery’s sociocultural impact, this study moves beyond existing discourses that focus on therapeutic benefits or technical aspects of AI to explore the shaping of perceptions of ageing. Through a tripartite qualitative design – visual analysis of 40 AI artworks, semi-structured interviews with the artist, and audience interviews with five Singaporean women (aged 20s–60s) – we critically analyse the meaning-making process of ageing by exploring AI-generated artefacts, artistic intention and audience reception. Findings reveal that while Auntieverse seeks to challenge ageist stereotypes by depicting female older adults as autonomous and vibrant, it also highlights the inherent biases embedded in AI aesthetics and the interpretive gap between artistic intent and audience perception. This study positions AI art as a medium for generating new cultural representations of ageing and advocates for a more critical and deliberate engagement with AI’s influence on cultural storytelling. Three central themes emerged for discussion: ‘Re-seeing age identity’, ‘Re-thinking the ageing body’ and ‘RepAInting successful ageing’. While acknowledging the limitations of AI-generated imagery, this study emphasizes the potential of AI art to reshape sociocultural understandings of ageing.

How people experience their own ageing may impact how likely they are to remain engaged with life. This study examined (1) biologically based risk factors in the form of self-reported health and cognition, and (2) age-related stereotypes and frequency of perceived ageism as predictors of engagement with life and number of ‘close’ social connections in older adulthood. We aimed to move beyond studies focusing on direct links between ageism and psychosocial functioning by examining the extent to which ageism could act as a moderating factor, amplifying negative associations between established risk factors and engagement with life. Data were obtained from a community-based sample of 287 South Australians aged 65–103 years (M = 76.41, SD = 7.13; 54.4 per cent female) who participated in a telephone survey. Hierarchical multiple linear regressions were run using Stata v15.1. Overall, frequency of perceived ageism in this community sample was low. More positive age-related stereotypes were related to more ‘close’ social connections, but not greater engagement with life. Counter to expectations, an interaction of frequency of perceived ageism with health indicated that higher engagement with life was associated with more frequent perceived ageism, but only among those in poorer health. No other moderating effects were observed. The findings are discussed in terms of possible underlying mechanisms linking ageism, stereotypes and engagement, including the likelihood that our results in part reflect reverse causality, with those with both greater physical limitations and who remain broadly engaged being at greater risk of experiencing ageism.

Despite growing attention being paid to digital inclusion and its impact on individual well-being, empirical research focusing specifically on middle-aged adults and young-old adults remains limited, particularly in China. This study examines the association between digital inclusion and subjective well-being among middle-aged adults (aged 45–59) and young-old adults (aged 60–69) in China, utilizing data from the 2019 and 2021 waves of Chinese Social Survey (CSS). The analysis begins with descriptive statistics that outline the current status of digital inclusion and subjective well-being among these groups, followed by regression models that assess the impact of digital inclusion and investigate possible moderating factors. The results indicate that digital inclusion significantly enhances subjective well-being for both middle-aged and young-old adults, with all four dimensions of digital inclusion showing positive associations with well-being. Among these, digital learning inclusion exerts the strongest effect. However, factors such as socio-economic status, social connection and political participation do not fully account for this relationship, and, notably, social connection may even diminish the positive effects of digital inclusion on well-being. This study offers a new perspective on the impact of digital inclusion on the subjective well-being of middle-aged and young-old adults, and provides a direction for further research in this field.

Against the calls for the development of ‘a more than human’ gerontology, this article challenges the assumptions behind this move by positing that its dependence on post-humanist epistemologies and ontologies risks making age a matter more of the imagination than of human mattering, of assemblage more than of meaning. The ‘decentring’ involved in such approaches of what is distinctly human about ageing has led to an imaginary ontology of flattened ‘assemblages’ of age. While these post-humanist developments might seem to offer an imaginative leap into a ‘more than human’ world, the radicalism implied can equally be understood as being largely rhetorical, designed to impress rather than inform our thinking. If the distinctly human experience of age and finitude is absented from our thinking, the mattering of ageing risks being reduced to no more than the universal flux of an impersonal vitalism. We would conclude that it is still critically important for gerontology to maintain its privileging of the human and more generally of humanism in thinking about and researching the tasks it sets itself.

Existing studies on elderly care vulnerability have overlooked how ageing itself shapes such vulnerability, particularly in rural contexts. To address this research gap, this study explores the impact of ageing on rural elderly care vulnerability through vulnerability decomposition, employing the Alkire-Foster method. We draw on data from the 2013, 2018 and 2021 waves of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). The findings reveal a consistent upward trend in elderly care vulnerability among rural older adults between 2013 and 2021, indicating that population ageing exerts a detrimental effect on the overall elderly care vulnerability of rural seniors. Significant group disparities are observed: the advanced-age group exhibits substantially higher vulnerability than their younger elderly counterparts. Further analysis of the drivers behind this increased vulnerability shows that from 2013 to 2018, the number of children and property holdings were the primary influencing factors. In contrast, from 2018 to 2021, heightened deprivation in social interaction and insufficient participation in insurance schemes emerged as key contributors. Additionally, participation in political, economic and religious activities was found to alleviate elderly care vulnerability – with these mitigating effects being more pronounced among men, economically disadvantaged individuals and those with lower educational attainment.

Grandparenthood is widely understood as a valued identity in later life, associated with treasured grandparent–grandchild relationships. Although scholars highlight the importance of mutuality and bidirectional flows in these relationships, there is a need for qualitative research exploring grandparents’ experiences of receiving care from their grandchildren. Material goods and services are often bound up with practices of intergenerational care, although this has rarely been the focus of research on grandparent–grandchild relationships. Informed by theories of care and consumption practices, and in-depth interviews, this article addresses two questions: how did grandparents experience receiving care from grandchildren during the pandemic, and how were consumption practices bound up with those experiences? Participants described experiencing various kinds of care from grandchildren (toddlers to young adults), suggesting that they experienced grandchildren’s care – and caring consumption practices – as autonomous or embedded within parental caring practices. Both types of care appeared to foster grandparental wellbeing, by highlighting that grandparents matter to younger generations: even small acts of care were experienced in this way. This was a particularly powerful message during the pandemic, when many older people felt physically and emotionally vulnerable and othered by media discourse about their expendability. Beyond offering further insights into the experiences of older people during the pandemic, these findings contribute to understanding of intergenerational care between grandparents and grandchildren. They demonstrate how the complex and multi-directional circulation of care within families is bound up with material practices, and how experiencing even small acts of care from grandchildren can foster grandparents’ wellbeing.

Care for older relatives is central in ageing societies, and the timing of caregiving onset significantly shapes caregivers’ health, social and employment trajectories. However, differences in the age at which family caregiving begins and their potential social and intersectional stratification have not been sufficiently explored. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we analysed individuals becoming daily caregivers between Waves 1 and 9 (ages 50–95). We explored intersectional inequalities in the age of caregiving onset, distinguishing intra- (partner, siblings) and intergenerational (parents, in-laws) caregiving. Intra-generational caregiving onset had a maximum 11-year difference between strata, while intergenerational caregiving had a four-year maximum difference. Across both types of care, women with low-skill occupations and high education had an earlier caregiving onset in the lifecourse. This was particularly pronounced for intra-generational care, with unique intersectional differences that could not be explained by single social factors alone. These findings highlight large inequalities in the age of caregiving onset between intersectional strata for both intra- and intergenerational care, demonstrating that becoming a care-giver is a socially stratified lifecourse transition. This contribution identifies who enters caregiving earlier, informing more targeted policy and practitioner support to prevent the accumulation of disadvantage in older ages. Mapping the social heterogeneity and intersectional nature of caregiving onset is critical to further understanding the prerequisites, meaning and consequences for family caregivers across the lifecourse.

There is increasing attention to ‘being present’ and ‘being in the moment’ in the context of living with dementia, challenging narratives of decline. Keady and colleagues have situated this within a ‘continuum of moments’ including ‘creating the moment’, ‘being in the moment’, ‘ending the moment’ and ‘reliving the moment’. They call for further conceptual work on moments and dementia, examining how moments fit together as part of everyday life. At the same time, literature on care aesthetics draws attention to moments of beauty, creativity and multi-sensory engagement as part of care practice. Building on this literature, this article explores daily life as a ‘series of moments’ in an autoethnographic account of caring for my mum who is living with dementia, exploring shifts between moments that are difficult, sad, challenging, beautiful, joyful and/or caring. It offers new insights into challenging moments as well as positive ones and the relation of moments to reciprocal emotion work. The article considers tensions between supporting my mum’s continuity of self and constant adaptation, and challenges involved in creating, being in, ending and reliving moments. The discussion explores implications for care practice, highlighting how a focus on moments can help make sense of experiences of caring, and the need for further support with the emotion work associated with care aesthetics.

Approximately 96 per cent of older adults in Australia live at home and one-third of older people aged 65+ are of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds. Despite recognising that aged care experiences are shaped by sociocultural and institutional systems, there are no scoping reviews of Australia-based research to advance understanding of how family care is provided and received in CALD families. This scoping review fills the research gap by systematically synthesising research on the experiences of family carers of older migrants in Australia to broaden the literature on how sociocultural context shapes care experiences. Using Arksey and O’Malley’s five-stage framework, we searched data on seven electronic databases to solicit journal articles published from 2014 to 2024. After assessing 5,004 studies meeting the eligibility criteria, 15 articles were included and analysed. Thematic analysis identified four themes: (1) cultural expectations of family care; (2) emotional and instrumental burdens of family care; (3) generational gaps in understanding family care; and (4) barriers to accessing services beyond family care. The findings showed strong cultural expectations of filial support among both older migrants and their family carers across cultural groups. However, balancing filial obligations with job commitments proved challenging, and language and system barriers prevented access to needed external care services. This study recommends policies and practices to integrate community and family care. This can improve carers’ experiences and facilitate the delivery of culturally appropriate care to meet care needs.

Since the pandemic, older adults have become more willing to adopt video calling to stay connected with loved ones. Prior research indicates that video-mediated communication has the potential to facilitate perceived closeness to interaction partners, but may present difficulties for older adults of advanced ages in terms of usability and accessibility, challenging them to benefit as much from the distance-reducing properties of video calling as younger older adults. However, the video-calling experiences of those aged 75+ and the specific conditions enabling them to overcome medium-related challenges, especially in informal settings, have remained relatively unexplored. This study aimed to gain deeper understanding of the circumstances that shape perceptions of distance and closeness during the video-mediated interactions of this age group. Using grounded theory analysis of 108 interviews, it identified five key properties and three roles ascribed to video-mediated communication, revealing that respondents’ perceptions of distance and proximity were contingent upon their appraisals of video calling’s properties in light of their broader emotional, relational and interactional contexts. The findings confirm video calling’s potential to reduce perceived distance in the informal encounters of individuals aged 75+. Nevertheless, fear of substitution of in-person contacts may overshadow video calling’s positive aspects, undermining any perceived closeness to interaction partners. By unveiling the mechanisms central to empowering or impeding these individuals in navigating medium-related challenges and overcoming perceived distance during video-mediated interactions, this article sheds light on the age-related specificity of their video-calling experiences and offers valuable starting points for developing strategies to help them benefit fully from video-mediated social-interaction opportunities.

Rapid population ageing and the digitalization of daily life have created a dual challenge: ensuring cognitive health while preventing digital exclusion among older adults. While the ‘use it or lose it’ hypothesis suggests that environmental stimulation protects against cognitive decline, international evidence regarding the causal impact of internet use on cognition remains mixed, particularly in developing contexts where digital adoption is uneven. This study addresses this gap by investigating the causal impact of internet use on cognitive abilities among middle-aged and older adults in China, while also exploring the heterogeneity of effects and potential underlying mechanisms. Utilizing three waves of panel data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) with 40,438 observations, we employ instrumental variable (IV) estimation to address endogeneity and generalized random forests (GRFs) to estimate heterogeneous treatment effects. The results demonstrate that internet use significantly enhances cognitive abilities, with the IV estimates confirming a strong causal link. Notably, the GRF analysis reveals that these cognitive benefits are larger for rural residents, individuals with lower education levels and those who adopt the internet in middle age. Mechanism analyses indicate that these benefits are primarily driven by increased social interaction and reduced stress levels rather than changes in health behaviours. We conclude that digital inclusion serves as a critical non-medical intervention for healthy ageing, particularly in developing countries where it can help bridge cognitive disparities caused by socio-economic inequalities.

Time perspective can shape how individuals experience life, influencing their wellbeing, perspectives and interactions with societal attitudes. This study explores the interconnections between time perspective, perceived ageism and subjective wellbeing (SWB) across the lifespan. Specifically, it aims to (1) compare time perspective, perceived ageism and SWB among three age cohorts across the lifespan; (2) analyse the influence of time perspective on SWB; and (3) examine whether perceived ageism moderates the relationship between time perspective and SWB. Data were collected from 884 Portuguese participants (aged 18–39, 40–59 and 60+) using various methods and subjected to multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) and moderated regression analyses. Findings suggest distinct differences in time perspective, perceived ageism and SWB between the age cohorts. Future FTP-opportunity decreases with age, while FTP-limitation is higher among older adults. Negative and positive ageism are more prevalent among older adults, with positive ageism increasing with age, and satisfaction with life seems to be higher in middle age. Further, FTP-limitation increases negative affect and reduces positive affect and life satisfaction, while FTP-opportunity boosts both of them. Positive and negative ageism moderate these effects, with positive ageism weakening FTP-opportunity’s benefits and negative ageism intensifying its impact on affect and satisfaction with life. Understanding how perceptions of age and future opportunities shape SWB across life stages is crucial. The findings highlight the impact of ageism on both younger and older adults, emphasizing the need for an inclusive approach to age that promotes wellbeing and opportunities for individuals across the lifecycle.

The concept of precarity is increasingly being applied in social gerontology to understand risks and uncertainties faced by older adults. However, existing research has not captured precarity quantitatively nor has it modelled its effect on older adults’ health. We therefore develop a Later Life Precarity Index and model its association with frailty. Using longitudinal data on 15,733 older adults from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we examine the association between frailty and risks across the domains of finances, pensions, employment, housing, relationship and unpaid care-giving. We then develop the Later Life Precarity Index and model its longitudinal association with a Frailty Index using hybrid panel regression. The results indicate that multiple social risks are strongly and independently associated with frailty, particularly around finances, housing, fuel poverty and food insecurity. In longitudinal models, the precarity index explains both between-individual differences and within-individual changes in frailty and performs substantially better than standard measures of socio-economic status (wealth and education). The strong longitudinal association of the precarity index with frailty suggests that social gerontology’s growing focus on precarity is a useful lens for understanding the diverse, changing and new forms of social risk that impact frailty. By developing, testing and sharing this novel measure of later life precarity, this study brings potential for new understandings of the evolving drivers of inequalities in the health of older adults.