Family-based eldercare is a vital contributor to the wellbeing of older people and the economy of Aotearoa New Zealand. Yet, little is known about how cultural shifts have impacted traditional caregiving practices among Pacific peoples, particularly the needs of aiga (families) to sustain care for mātua (Mātua and Elder are terms used interchangeably in reference to Pacific Mātua (Elders)). This article presents a Pacific–Indigenous research protocol that is intrinsically co-designed and participatory, enabling a deep investigation into family, community, and church perspectives on eldercare. Grounded in the methodologies of fa’afaletui (collective wisdom gathering) and talanoa (relational dialogue), the protocol provides a culturally grounded lens to: (a) identify eldercare practices that contribute to the health and wellbeing of Pacific mātua and their carers; (b) examine the impact of cultural and contextual change on caregiving practices; and (c) detail the socio-cultural and material supports needed to sustain Pacific caregiving. Churches, functioning as cultural villages in the diaspora, serve as key sites for engagement and validation. This protocol affirms Pacific values and relational ethics, offering a transformative framework for co-creating community-led solutions that support ageing in place and inform inclusive eldercare policy and practice. It contributes to the development of culturally responsive strategies that honour Indigenous knowledge systems and strengthen intergenerational wellbeing across Pacific communities.
Population aging presents not only socioeconomic challenges but also unlocks the potential of the silver economy. This study examines how digital finance, as a transformative force, drives consumption among older adults and reduces consumption inequality, thereby contributing to more inclusive aging societies. Using household-level data from the China Family Panel Studies (2018–2022) and a two-way fixed effects model, we establish a robust positive effect of digital finance on consumption among older adults. This effect operates through two key pathways: by elevating absolute household income and by mitigating relative income disparities. Importantly, we demonstrate that digital finance significantly narrows consumption inequality within the older adult population. Heterogeneity analyses reveal that these benefits are particularly pronounced for rural residents, low-income households, and the young-old cohort. Our findings highlight digital finance not merely as a tool for market expansion but as a viable policy instrument for fostering inclusive growth and enhancing the material foundations of welfare in an aging society.
Finland, like other countries, has introduced pension reforms with the goal of extending working lives. While working longer is often possible for those in good health and in jobs with adequate working conditions, this might not be feasible for those who work in physically demanding jobs. This study investigates the relation between physically demanding work and the risk of labor market exit. It also analyses whether workers can delay exit by timely changing to a less arduous occupation. We use full population register data and follow workers born in years 1955–1959 from ages 50 to 62 or until they permanently stop working (N persons = 161,412, N person-years = 1,816,660). These data are combined with occupation-level job exposure matrices. Using discrete-time survival analysis, we estimate associations of occupations’ exposure to physical arduousness, as well as changes in arduousness, with the risk of labor market exit. We find that working in more physically demanding occupations at age 50 increased the subsequent risk of exit, although the effect was reduced after controlling for selection into arduous work. For those who start out in the most physically demanding occupations, changing to a less demanding occupation can meaningfully lower the risk of exit if the decrease in arduousness is sufficient.
In the United Kingdom, population health worsened significantly during the period of austerity that was implemented following the 2008 Financial Crash. When analysing these trends in older adults, the field of social gerontology has increasingly used the concept of Later Life Precarity to understand the exposure to numerous, intersecting risks that individuals face when ageing in this social and political environment. However, there has been limited quantitative analysis of Later Life Precarity and its effects on health. Accordingly, this study uses data on 8553 adults aged 50 + from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing to examine the forms that precarity takes in later life and its associations with health. We firstly describe configurations of risk that make up precarity experienced by older adults across the domains of finances, pensions, employment, housing, relationships and caregiving. We then use Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) to identify precarious intersections of risk associated with especially elevated frailty levels. The MAIHDA model identified a number of forms of precarity that were associated with particularly high frailty, with the strongest random effect being observed for women who are divorced, widowed and/or living alone and who lack financial and pensions security. In the context of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, these findings demonstrate how frailty emerges at the intersection of numerous social risks and, furthermore, highlight the cost (both to the individual and to healthcare systems) of policies that fail to provide a secure and equitable environment for our ageing population.
End-of-life migration to sacred places constitutes a distinctive and understudied form of later-life mobility, wherein older adults migrate to pursue spiritual fulfilment and prepare for death. Although previous research has addressed ageing, religion, and migration as separate phenomena, there has been limited scholarly attention to the ways in which elderly migrants experience and practice spirituality within sacred environments during the final stages of life. This study investigates the lived experiences, devotional practices, and well-being of elderly migrants residing in ashrams in Varanasi, India, a city widely associated with liberation from the cycle of rebirth. Grounded in the concept of embodied devotion, the study explores how spirituality is enacted through bodily practices, disciplined routines, and sacred dwelling in later life. A convergent mixed-methods design was employed, combining a survey of 110 elderly migrants with ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews conducted across selected ashrams in Varanasi. A Composite Embodied Devotion Index (EDI) was developed to assess the intensity of devotional engagement. The findings reveal that migration is primarily motivated by spiritual aspirations and is sustained through ritual participation, ascetic discipline, communal worship, and daily devotional routines. Although participants experienced physical frailty and age-related health challenges, they demonstrated high levels of spiritual satisfaction, emotional resilience, inner peace, and reduced fear of death. Ashrams served as significant spiritual and social infrastructures that provided belonging, meaning, and existential support. This study advances scholarship on ageing, migration, lived religion, and sacred landscape by illustrating how embodied devotion enables older adults to address vulnerability, death, and spiritual aspiration within a sacred landscape. The findings underscore the importance of culturally grounded spiritual environments in supporting well-being and end-of-life care among ageing populations.
