BackgroundIn ageing societies, understanding the lived experiences of dependent older adults is essential for designing care policies that support health, dignity, and well-being. While ageing in place is widely promoted, less is known about how dependent older adults themselves define its limits.AimThis study examines how dependent older adults describe the conditions under which ageing in place supports-or undermines- their dignity and quality of life.MethodsWe conducted 30 in-depth interviews with individuals aged 65 and older in Barcelona, Spain, all officially recognized as having some degree of dependency. Interviews were analysed using a thematic approach, according to environmental gerontology and person-environment fit frameworks.ResultsAgeing in place emerged not as a fixed preference but as a fragile and continuously negotiated process of the person-place relationship. Remaining at home is sustained by symbolic autonomy and attachment to familiar environments, supporting control over daily routines and a sense of dignity. At the same time, participants described a state of care liminality, continuously reassessing their ability to remain at home in light of anticipated health decline. Three interconnected boundaries emerged: deteriorating health, perceived burden on family members, and loneliness.ConclusionsAgeing in place among dependent older adults should be understood as a conditional and relational process rather than a universal ideal. Recognising older adults' own definitions of its limits is essential for designing responsive care policies.

As societies age, ensuring the quality of life of dependent individuals has become a pressing concern, affecting an increasing large segment of the population. Understanding whether dependent individuals receive the type of care they prefer is central to their well-being. However, there is limited evidence regarding the alignment between care preferences and the care arrangements received by dependent persons. This article aims to provide new insights into how individual and contextual factors are associated to the match -or mismatch- between care preferences and current care arrangements, as well as its implications for individuals’ well-being and satisfaction with care. We use data from the 2023 Survey of Older People with Functional Dependency, which includes a representative sample (n = 1,600, with 992 self-respondents) of dependent individuals aged 65 and over in Barcelona, Spain. Logistic regression models are used to estimate the associations between dependent individuals’ characteristics and their care preferences, as well as the matching between these preferences and their current care arrangements. We further examine how this alignment relates to satisfaction and well-being. Care preferences differ based on sex, household size, level of dependency, and household income. Approximately 70 per cent of older dependents report that their current care arrangements do not match their care preferences. Older dependent women and those over 85 are less likely to have care arrangements aligned with their preferences. Living with others in the household increases the likelihood of alignment between preferences and care provision. While no significant association was found between alignment and well-being indicators, we observed that care match enhances individuals’ satisfaction with care they receive. Older dependent individuals’ preferences for care provision often do not match their current care arrangements. Both individual and contextual factors could explain this phenomenon. The widespread preference for receiving care at home highlights the need for social policies that promote home-based solutions. As family support for dependent individuals becomes less available, and given the significant burden this may place for family caregivers, there is a growing need to develop flexible, personalized, and sustainable care strategies.

Non-take-up, i.e. individuals not applying for a benefit they are eligible for, is a widespread problem limiting the reach of welfare and protection systems. This paper seeks to understand it by means of a theoretical framework comprising two levels of analysis: the claimants' individual characteristics in relation to the information barriers they face, and the administrative logic and functioning regarding the communications strategy used by public institutions. To test the hypotheses of these two levels of analysis, the paper analyses the B-MINCOME pilot scheme, a cash transfer programme implemented in the city of Barcelona between 2017 and 2019. Findings indicate that, although claimants' characteristics may play a significant role, the administrative functioning and the communications strategy are fundamental in determining take-up rates. The conclusions briefly address some of the technical and moral concerns raised by non-take-up.

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar nuevas evidencias sobre lasconsecuencias educativas de las características del entorno en la brechade género educativa. A partir de datos del Programa para la EvaluaciónInternacional de Alumnos (PISA), se evalúa en qué medida la brecha degénero existente en las puntuaciones de comprensión lectora estácondicionada por los diferentes contextos escolares y los niveles deigualdad de género de cada país. A partir del análisis multinivel observamosque la composición social de la escuela y el comportamiento de susintegrantes tienen una influencia significativa en la brecha de género, perode forma diferenciada. La brecha educativa de género aumenta cuandoempeora el clima escolar y cuando menor es la concentración de padrescon niveles educativos bajos. En sociedades con niveles superiores deigualdad de género las chicas incrementan los resultados de comprensiónlectora en mayor medida.

OBJECTIVE:Identify the role that pet ownership may play in mitigating feelings of loneliness among dependent older adults, with a particular focus on gender and mobility problems. METHOD:We use a representative sample of dependent individuals aged 65 and over (n = 1,600), with 1,005 self-respondents in Barcelona, drawn from the 2023 Survey of Older People with Functional Dependency. Logistic regression models assess the associations between pet ownership (dog, cat, or other animal) and perceived loneliness in older dependents. Models are stratified by gender. RESULTS:The analysis highlights that dog ownership and receiving family care are factors associated to lower risk of perceived loneliness, particularly among women. In contrast, the association between pet ownership and loneliness is less clear for men for whom no differences were observed between dog owners, other pet owners and individuals without pets in the outcome measure. Our analyses also reveal that the benefits of dog ownership hold only for old age dependents with mobility impairments. CONCLUSION:Our results provide evidence that gender, type of pet and mobility are key variables associated to loneliness. These findings underscore the importance of considering dog ownership and family involvement in care strategies to mitigate loneliness among older dependents.

Life course research emphasizes that health and wellbeing at older ages are influenced by experiences occurred in the previous stages of life. Several studies have focused on fertility and partnership histories and health at older ages, but fewer have examined subjective wellbeing (SWB), especially using a holistic approach. Another strand of the literature demonstrated that non-standard family behaviors negatively influence SWB. We contribute to these strands of the literature by examining the association between non-standardness of family histories and SWB at older ages. We argue that individuals who experienced non-standard trajectories have been exposed to social sanctions throughout their life course which could exert negative long-term influence on their SWB.We apply sequence analysis and optimal matching on retrospective data from the seventh wave of the Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to calculate the degree of non-standardness of family histories between age 15 and 49. Subsequently, we estimate linear regression models to assess the association between non-standardness of family histories and older people's SWB. Our results show a negative association between non-standardness of family histories and SWB, which is stronger for lower educated individuals and in Southern European countries.

Background The intersection between poverty and mental health is clear. Period poverty, understood as the lack of access to menstrual products, has been gaining attention especially among low and middle-income countries as an overlooked aspect of gendered poverty. Less is known about the incidence of period poverty in high-income countries and its association with mental health. The purpose of this study is to examine this association in a representative sample of young women living in an urban setting in southern Europe. Methods This is a cross-sectional study. Data were obtained from a representative survey of individuals aged 15 to 34 in the city of Barcelona (Spain), with a sample group of 647 young women. Subjects were selected through a systematic stratified random sampling method. A proportional quota sampling was used. The information was registered using CAPI data collection method. Period poverty was measured by a combination of three questions about the lack of access or misuse of menstrual products for economic reasons. The GHQ-12 was used to measure the risk of poor mental health. The analysis was carried out using multivariable logistic regression. Results From our sample, 15.3% of young women reported having experienced period poverty. Higher odds of poor mental health were estimated for women facing period poverty (AOR = 1.85 p < 0.05). This effect is statistically significant after controlling by their income status and level of deprivation. Young women living in poorer households have a higher probability of poor mental health than those living in high-income households (AOR = 0.47 p < 0.05). Finally, material deprivation was associated to an increased risk of poor mental health among young women reporting period poverty (AOR = 2.59 p < 0.01). Conclusion We found that a considerable number of young women living in an urban setting in a high-income country cannot afford menstrual products, and this may have an impact on their mental wellbeing. The relationship between period poverty and respondents’ mental health is significant when controlling for factors known to confer an increased risk of poor mental health. If confirmed by further research, the public health burden of poor mental health in young women could be reduced by policy-level interventions to improve access to menstrual products.

Menstrual poverty has become a global issue, affecting women who do not have access to the menstrual products they need. Most of the related literature is based on low- and middle-income countries’ facts and experiences. Using the 2020 Youth Survey in Barcelona, this cross-sectional study provides novel data on the prevalence and the factors associated with menstrual poverty in an urban context (Barcelona) in a high-income country (Spain) with a randomly selected representative sample of 700 young women aged 15 to 34. Descriptive statistics and logistic regression models were used in the analysis. Results show that 15.3 per cent of young women in Barcelona reported facing financial barriers to accessing menstrual products. Further, those young women with a high level of material deprivation (OR=4.42; CI=2.14–9.16) have a greater probability of suffering from menstrual poverty, whereas those living independently from their parents (OR=0.50; CI=0.28–0.90) and women with a non-EU origin (Latin-Americans: OR=0.54; CI=0.31–0.93; Others: OR=0.06; CI=0.01–0.46) have a lower probability of reporting menstrual poverty. Our findings advocate that the measurement of poverty should consider individual aspects and needs, and not only the household income level as the reference. Further, we would encourage rethinking poverty measurement with a gender perspective, as well as identifying how deprivations overlap to aggravate the experience of poverty.

Between 2017 and 2019, Barcelona was one of the first European cities to implement a basic income experiment, the B-MINCOME pilot, aimed at reducing poverty and social exclusion in a low-income area of the city. A new cash grant was designed along with a package of active policies. Four modalities of participation were then established depending on two criteria: whether attending these policies was mandatory or not, and whether participants' additional income altered the amount of the grant or was instead net added on top. The context which initially moulded the pilot is firstly explained. Then, the cash schema and the active policies are described followed by an explanation of its experimental design. The main results at individual, community and institutional levels formerly released in the official reports are now integrated and jointly addressed. Finally, conclusions discuss some issues raised by the pilot's results in light of the findings gathered in other similar basic income experiments.

An aging population and rising life expectancy lead to an increased demand for social services to care for dependent users, among other factors. In Barcelona, home social care (HSC) services are a key agent in meeting this demand. However, demand is not evenly distributed among neighborhoods, and we hypothesized that this can be explained by the user's social environment. In this work, we describe the user's environment at a macroscopic level by the socioeconomic features of the neighborhood. This research aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the dependent user's socioeconomic environment and service needs. We applied descriptive analytics techniques to explore possible patterns linking HSC demand and other features. These methods include principal components analysis (PCA) and hierarchical clustering. The main analysis was made from the obtained boxplots, after these techniques were applied. We found that economic and disability factors, through users' mean net rent and degree of disability features, are related to the demand for home social care services. This relation is even clearer for the home-based social care services. These findings can be useful to distribute the services among areas by considering more features than the volume of users/population. Moreover, it can become helpful in future steps to develop a management tool to optimize HSC scheduling and staff assignment to improve the cost and quality of service. For future research, we believe that additional and more precise characteristics could provide deeper insights into HSC service demand.

Care strategies for older dependants are determined by not only individuals or network characteristics, but also contextual factors. The objective of this study is to determine whether urban contexts (neighbourhoods) are linked to the use of family care (informal), public services or private care at home (formal). We applied logistic regression analysis to data from the Survey of People in a Situation of Dependence 2018. The sample was composed of 530 older people (55 years old and over) living in two types of socio-economic groups of neighbourhoods in Barcelona, Spain. The type of neighbourhood is relevant in explaining the home care that older dependants receive. In neighbourhoods with a high socio-economic level, dependants are more likely to use private services and less likely to use informal care services and public services, even after controlling for household income, degree of dependency, sex, age and the number of people in the household. Understanding the factors that determine the use of public care services, private care services or family care-giving is important due to the increment in the number of older people in the population. Our results suggest that differences in urban socio-economic contexts determine some inequalities in the use of services even after controlling for socio-economic individual differences. The characteristics of neighbourhoods should be considered to adjust care policies for older dependants.

Les cures de les persones en situació de dependència funcional sovint són font de dificultats i desigualtats en les societats conegudes com a familistes. L’objectiu d’aquest article és identificar els perfils de les cuidadores i cuidadors de les persones en situació de dependència funcional, així com quines són les característiques que fan augmentar la probabilitat que rebin diferents tipus de cures domiciliàries. Per dur a terme aquesta anàlisi s’ha utilitzat la base de dades de l’Enquesta de Persones en Situació de Dependència Funcional (EPSD) realitzada el 2018 a la ciutat de Barcelona. Les dades mostren que hi ha una feminització generalitzada dels perfils professionals del personal cuidador (ja sigui d’àmbit públic o privat), així com en l’àmbit familiar, especialment quan es tracta de la persona cuidadora principal. Les llars amb ingressos elevats tenen una probabilitat més alta d’utilitzar serveis de cura de pagament, i les persones que viuen soles tenen menys probabilitat de rebre ajuda familiar i més de rebre ajudes per part dels serveis de l’Ajuntament. Els resultats mostren la necessitat d’intensificar les polítiques de cures, en especial en les llars amb menys recursos, en les que hi viuen persones amb dependència soles, i en les que es té com a principal persona cuidadora un familiar d’edat avançada.

Purpose Social inequalities in mental health can be captured by occupational situation and social class stratification. This study analyzes the adequacy of a classification of work and employment conditions and an adaptation of the Goldthorpe social class scheme in relation to mental health in Barcelona, Spain. Design/methodology/approach Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) and hierarchical cluster analysis (CA) on working and employment conditions were used to empirically construct distinctive working groups. Through 2 logistic regression models, we contrasted the association between mental health and (1) the cluster of employment and working conditions (with 4 categories: insiders, instrumental, precarious and peripheral workers), and (2) a standard Spanish version of the Goldthorpe social class scheme. The performance of the 2 models was assessed with Akaike and Bayesian information criteria. The analyses were carried out using the Barcelona Health Survey (2016) including the labor force population from 22 to 64 years of age. Findings Wide inequalities were found in mental health with both class schemes. The empirical class scheme was more effective than the Goldthorpe social class scheme in explaining mental health inequalities. In particular, precarious and peripheral workers in the MCA-CA analysis, together with unemployed workers, emerged as distinctive social groups apparently masked within the lower social class in the standard scheme. When using the standard scheme, the authors recommend widening the scope at the bottom of the social class categories while shrinking it at the top as well as considering unemployed persons as a separate category to better represent mental health inequalities. Social implications The working poor appear to report at least as much poor mental health as unemployed persons. Policies aimed at more inclusive work should consider job quality improvements to improve the mental well-being of the labor force. Originality/value Our study examines the utility of social classes to explain mental health inequalities by comparing an empirically based social class to the Spanish adaptation of the Goldthorpe classification.

Despite the increasing evidence on the effects of the economic crisis and austerity policies on the health of the population, we lack knowledge of how the young population is being affected. High unemployment rates, labour instability, high housing costs and cuts in public policies have placed the young in a vulnerable situation. We explore changes (2006–2017) in the both physical and mental health of young people in Spain using a selection of health indicators. By doing so we draw the reader’s attention to three elements with a close relationship to neoliberalism: the prominence of social determinants of health, the importance of inequalities and the accumulation of multiple sources of disadvantage in certain groups and individuals which ultimately condition the course of their lives; and the use of medicalization as a common and legitimised response to poor mental health.

Objectives We examine to what extent the effect of early-life conditions (health and socioeconomic status) on health in later life is mediated by educational attainment and life-course trajectories (fertility, partnership, employment). Methods Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (N = 12,034), we apply, separately by gender, multichannel sequence analysis and cluster analysis to obtain groups of similar family and employment histories. The KHB method is used to disentangle direct and indirect effects of early-life conditions on health. Results Early-life-conditions indirectly impact on health in later life as result of their influence on education and family and employment trajectories. For example, between 22% and 42% of the effect of low parental socio-economic status at childhood on the three considered health outcomes at older age is explained by educational attainment for women. Even higher percentages are found for men (35% - 57%). On the contrary, the positive effect of poor health at childhood on poor health at older ages is not significantly mediated by education and life-course trajectories. Education captures most of the mediating effect of parental socio-economic status. More specifically, between 66% and 75% of the indirect effect of low parental socio-economic status at childhood on the three considered health outcomes at older age is explained by educational attainment for women. Again, higher percentages are found for men (86% - 93%). Early-life conditions, especially socioeconomic status, influence family and employment trajectories indirectly through their impact on education. We also find a persistent direct impact of early-life conditions on health at older ages. Conclusions Our findings demonstrate that early-life experiences influence education and life-course trajectories and health in later life, suggesting that public investments in children are expected to produce long lasting effects on people's lives throughout the different phases of their life-course.

B-MINCOME es un proyecto piloto del Ayuntamiento de Barcelona de lucha contra la pobreza y la exclusion en zonas desfavorecidas de la ciudad. Para ello combina dos politicas, una de pasiva (una renta minima o Soporte Municipal de Inclusion) y cuatro politicas activas de inclusion socio-laboral. El proyecto, con una duracion de 24 meses (de octubre de 2017 a octubre de 2019)) cuenta con la participacion de 1.000 hogares de la zona, divididos en 11 grupos diferentes, de acuerdo al grupo de tratamiento asignado (con o sin politica activa asociada) y a la modalidad del Apoyo Municipal de Inclusion que reciban (condicionado o no condicionado, con limitacion o sin limitacion). El objetivo del proyecto es testear la eficiencia (adecuacion de medios presupuestarios y administrativos a los fines establecidos) y la eficacia (capacidad de reduccion de la pobreza) de estas cuatro modalidades de prestacion y de las cuatro politicas activas para reducir las tasas de pobreza y de exclusion de estas zonas de la ciudad.