Welfare and Work in an Ageing Society

Project description

The program is based on four broad research themes of central relevance to living conditions and life quality: 1. Ageing and health 2. Ageing and work (a. the transition from work to inactivity b. the quality of working life among elderly employed) 3. Ageing and economic resources 4. Ageing and social relations. Within each of these themes various research questions are highlighted but equally important in the research programme is to study the interaction between different welfare arenas in order to frame the complex configuration of elderly people’s living conditions and processes behind varying outcomes (good/bad: economy, health, social relations, ability to participate in paid labour, daily activities etc.) However, studying the allocation and prevalence of welfare problems in different welfare domains and among various social strata is not sufficient in order to fully understand the mechanisms that govern the distribution of welfare in old age. To a certain degree, the welfare of the elderly population is the outcome of a combination of previously experienced circumstances and present condition. Therefore, longitudinal analyses are prioritised in the program since such data are a prerequisite to improve our knowledge about social mechanisms that uphold the association between different arenas and processes that lead to social exclusion and obstruct successful ageing. The empirical base for the program consists of a national panel survey covering micro-individual, macro-societal, subjective-objective data. Also, in order to obtain deep descriptions of various aspects of everyday life qualitative methods are applied in selected parts of the proposed program.