Increasing meritocracy has intensified negative perceptions of individuals in lower socioeconomic positions, especially welfare recipients, who are often viewed as incapable, lazy, or unmotivated. We conducted twenty-nine in-depth interviews with long-term social assistance recipients (SARs) in the Netherlands to explore their experiences with welfare stigmatisation. We used Garc & iacute;a-Lorenzo and colleagues' (2022) typology to analyse SARs' responses to stigmatisation. Surrounded by negative stereotypes, most participants internalised welfare stigma. Initially, many withdrew socially and engaged in harmful behaviours, but over time, their responses became less destructive. We identified four groups: individuals who are managing health, reorienting life, rebuilding life, or blaming the system. Overall, our findings suggest that social interventions should help SARs develop new, non-stigmatised identities to enhance their self-image and overall well-being. Given the widespread and negative consequences of welfare stigma, public, political, and media discourses should focus on addressing underlying societal issues rather than solely attributing problems to individuals.

Investigating health and ageing with older adults with low socioeconomic status (SES) is challenging, because they seem to have trouble completing questionnaires containing abstract concepts such as health and ageing. Visual tools may be more suitable alternatives. Therefore, we had the following research questions: What are the perspectives of low-SES older adults on positive ageing? How do low-SES older adults experience the participant-driven photo-elicitation method? For this study, 21 Dutch participants (mean age 75 years) gathered a maximum of 10 photographs about positive ageing. Most participants collected photographs digitally, and two participants needed assistance. Two weeks later, they were interviewed and asked to reflect on their photographs and share their experience with this photo-voice method. Results showed that most photographed themes were Social Health (spending time with children and grandchildren), Activities, Nature and Animals (pets), and Foods and Drinks. Additionally, Mental Health (feeling happy and accepting losses) and Positive Ageing (focusing on the bright side of life) were also discussed. All participants said that the method was pleasant and interesting. For some it made it easier to talk about positive ageing. Perceptions concerning positive ageing involved a combination of spending time with loved ones, activities, nature, pets, eating and drinking, and also accepting losses and enjoying life. An integrated approach could be directed at these perceptions in positive health programmes for older adults with a low SES.

ABSTRACT Europe's ageing population includes a growing number of older migrants whose experiences of ageing in place require methods that capture mobility, place, and social participation. Mobile ethnography, particularly walking/go‐along interviews, offers valuable opportunities to examine how older migrants engage with everyday environments. Yet existing mobile research with older migrants has often focused on participants able to take part in walking interviews, leaving less attention to how mobile ethnography can be applied with migrants in advanced age and with different mobility conditions. Drawing on fieldwork with migrants from Turkey in Germany, nearly all aged 70 and above, this paper develops a more flexible understanding of mobility within mobile ethnography. It shows how engagement with place can be explored through walking, but also through familiar community settings, shorter movements, narrated routes, remembered places, supported mobility, and repeated everyday routines. The paper offers a more inclusive methodological approach for research with ageing migrant populations.

Background. Strengthening the agency of social assistance recipients facing vulnerability may be crucial for improving their well-being. This study evaluates the effectiveness of the Self-Management of Well-being (SMW) group intervention among benefit recipients in the Netherlands. Methods. A one-group pretest-posttest design was used to evaluate self-management ability (SMA), well-being, loneliness, and stress in 87 intervention participants using validated questionnaire scales. Outcomes were measured pre-intervention (T0), immediately after the final session (T1, N=64) and three months later (T2, N=54). Repeated measures ANOVA with repeated contrasts, and sequential regression analyses tested intervention effects. Results. Significant short-term improvements were found in SMA and well-being, alongside significant reductions in loneliness and stress. Repeated measures ANOVA indicated that these intervention effects were maintained over time. Sequential regression analyses revealed that improvements in well-being, loneliness, and stress were partially explained by improved SMA. Discussion. The SMW group intervention enhanced SMA and overall well-being while reducing loneliness and stress among benefit recipients, suggesting that it is a valuable tool for strengthening agency and well-being in this population.

In the Netherlands, there are many households with long-term dependency on social assistance. Social policies and interventions for this population frequently utilise ‘work first’ and ‘human capital’ approaches, resulting in minimal positive outcomes. Therefore, it is essential to implement social work interventions that prioritise the unique challenges and well-being needs of long-term social assistance recipients (SARs). To develop interventions that align with this population, our study seeks to gain a deeper understanding of their lived experiences, challenges and needs. Through 29 in-depth interviews with SARs, we found that the accumulation of ongoing and emerging challenges often traps individuals in a cycle of adversity. Enhanced social support and self-management skills are crucial for improving their physical, mental and social well-being, and for combating feelings of shame, stigma and destructive behaviours. With these findings, this paper provides guidance for both policymakers and social workers aiming to offer better support to SARs.

ABSTRACT Background. This study assessed fidelity and feasibility of the Self-Management of Well-being (SMW) intervention for long-term social assistance recipients (SARs). Methods. Next to evaluation forms and on-site observations, semi-structured interviews with participants and teachers were used, which were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic analysis was performed using ATLAS.ti 23. Results. The intervention was executed with high fidelity, and seems feasible for the target population. Teachers and participants were positive about the intervention, its complexity, facilitation strategies, recruitment, quality of delivery, participant responsiveness, acceptability, and suitability. Participant dropout was relatively high. Discussion. This study contributes to improving the well-being of long-term SARs, as it provides an adequate support tool for this group. Drop-out remains a challenge. The positive results encourage widespread dissemination of the intervention. A study on its effectiveness is underway.

Abstract Although social frailty has been described from a theoretical perspective, the lived experiences of older adults regarding social frailty are yet unknown. In this paper, we aim to (a) gain more in-depth insights into community-dwelling and assisted-living older adults’ experiences of social frailty and (b) explore the differences in these experiences between these two groups. We conduct a thematic analysis of 38 interviews with community-dwelling and assisted-living older adults in rural villages the Netherlands. We structure our findings along three overarching themes which highlight different aspects of the social frailty experiences of our participants: (a) present resources and activities to fulfil social needs, (b) resources and activities that have been lost, and (c) how they manage and adapt to changes in resources and activities over time. Loneliness is only reported among the community-dwelling participants, while the loss of mobility and participation in (social) activities is experienced most strongly by the assisted-living participants. These findings challenge the widespread policies and practices of ageing in place. We conclude that for some older adults, living in assisted arrangements is preferred over ageing in place, as doing so can prevent social frailty. The key reason for this is that life in assisted living is likely to bring about new social resources and activities, which may serve to fulfil the social needs of older adults.

Background The Community Wise (CW) intervention applies a community-based approach to improve the physical fitness, self-management ability, loneliness, social cohesion, and well-being of older adults living in neighbourhoods characterized by lower socioeconomic status (SES). Methods Participants ( N = 108) were recruited using several strategies, including door-to-door visits and community key peers. The study was based on a pre-test/post-test design. Outcomes were assessed through mixed methods using questionnaires, performance tests, semi-structured interviews, and focus-group sessions. Results Results showed significant improvements on aerobic endurance and shoulder flexibility, but no significant improvements on self-management ability, social cohesion, loneliness, or well-being. Qualitative data analysis did indicate that participants experienced improvements on social connectedness with members of the group, as well as on self-management ability. Conclusion The results of the intervention seem to depend on programme fidelity and method of assessment. Adapting the intervention and including more older adults with poor health status could lead to better outcomes in the future. This results of this study should be interpreted in light of the complexity and methodological challenges of conducting a community-based health-promotion intervention for this target group. Trail registration Retrospective registration.

The aim of the current study is to investigate which major life events are associated with transitions into and out of volunteering over the life course and, especially, why these associations exist. Social Production Function theory is used to derive hypotheses, which are tested using longitudinal data (adult subsample) from Lifelines. Associations between major life events and (a) volunteer take-up, nonvolunteer sample ( N = 59,773) and (b) volunteer cessation, volunteer sample ( N = 32,143) are studied by applying Linear Probability Modeling. Results show clear associations between specific major life events and starting and quitting volunteering. The influence on the latter is stronger than on the former. Most findings are in line with our theory-based expectations indicating that (a) voluntary work contributes especially to the fulfillment of the needs for status, stimulation, and behavioral confirmation and (2) life events causing losses (gains) in these needs are associated with a higher likelihood to take-up (quit) volunteering.

Combining work and family roles can have beneficial consequences on health but could also result in chronic stress and adverse health outcomes at older ages. This study aimed to examine combined employment, parenthood, and partnership histories of men and women during the childbearing period (ages 15-49), and to investigate the links of these work and family roles with physical functioning later in life. We used data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) with retrospective information on employment, parenthood, and partnership histories for 18,057 men and 20,072 women (n = 38,129) living in 28 different countries belonging to six European welfare clusters. We applied multichannel sequence analysis (MCSQA) and hierarchical clustering to group work-family trajectories into 12 clusters for men and 15 clusters for women. We assessed the association between work-family life courses and grip strength by estimating multivariable linear regression models. Delayed work and family transitions, unstable employment, and the absence of combinations of work and family roles between age 15 and 49 were associated with weaker grip strength in later life for both men and women. Results differed by gender and were framed by the welfare context in which gendered work and family responsibilities unfold across individual life courses. The findings make an important contribution to the domain of gender and health in later life and stress the need to engage more with issues related to the mechanisms linking work and family trajectories to poor health in later life.

Geographical life-space is an important factor to consider when studying subjective wellbeing of older adults. The purpose of this article is twofold: to provide an in-depth understanding of 1) the geographical life-spaces in which the lives of older adults take place and 2) the relation between life-space and experienced levels of subjective wellbeing. Seventy-six older adults (aged 65 and older) participated in our qualitative study. We applied a qualitative research approach, through combining indepth-interviews with visual life-space diagrams. Our findings show that most older adults continue to experience a high level of subjective wellbeing, regardless of the extent of their life-space. We conclude that the possibility to fulfill one's needs, even in a restricted life-space, is more conducive to maintaining subjective wellbeing than the extent of life-space itself.

Older first‐generation migrants living in Europe, particularly Turkish migrants, feel relatively lonely, which indicates social exclusion. Social embeddedness within the family, particularly parent‐child relationships, can alleviate loneliness for older migrants, but such relationships can also be ambivalent, which may not prevent loneliness altogether. Earlier research indicates that Turkish migrants in Germany report high quality relationships with their children and high levels of social support exchanges within the family; however, some still report disappointing aspects of the relationship with their children, such as feeling disrespected. To better understand these contradictory findings, this article focuses on various aspects of parent‐child relationships that may explain loneliness among older Turkish migrants in Germany. Moreover, the article considers whether filial expectations can be potential sources of intergenerational conflict that may explain higher levels of loneliness among older Turkish migrants. Using the Generations and Gender Survey with 606 first‐generation Turkish respondents aged 50 and above, findings show that having low satisfying relationships with children and not having adult co‐residing children is associated with more loneliness. Turkish migrants with higher filial expectations feel lonelier when they have good perceived health, and less lonely when they have bad perceived health. These findings indicate that especially healthy older Turkish migrants may have unfulfilled expectations regarding parent‐child relationships, which adds to their loneliness, while parents with bad health experience solidarity, which lowers their loneliness. This shows that both intergenerational solidarity and conflict influence loneliness among older Turkish migrants.

Research focussing on older adults of low socioeconomic status (SES) faces several methodological challenges, including high rates of non-response and drop-out. In addition, older adults of low SES tend to be less willing to participate in research and are more likely to experience cognitive impairments and literacy problems. Photo-elicitation studies do not require high levels of literacy, and they might therefore be suitable for use in research with older adults of low SES. To date, however, little is known about setting up such studies with this target group. Our aim was to demonstrate how we systematically set up a researcher-driven photo-elicitation study to generate greater insight into the positive health perceptions of older adults of low SES. Our strategy consisted of three phases: development, testing and execution. In this article, we discuss each step of the research strategy and describe the limitations and strengths of our study. We also formulate recommendations for further research using photo-elicitation methods with this target group. Based on the results of this study, we conclude that the use of researcher-driven photo-elicitation is a powerful tool for enhancing understanding with regard to positive health perceptions and experiences of older adults of low SES. The usefulness of the method is particularly dependent on the careful development and testing of the study.

Purpose: The health perceptions of older adults with a lower socioeconomic status still seems to be unsettled. To gain more insight in these perceptions, 19 older adults were interviewed with the use of a photo-elicitation method.Methods: Participants reflected on ten photographs covering aspects of physical, social and mental health, and were also asked if and how they experience to have control over their health.Results: The results showed that the perception of health depended on the background of the participant, was experience-oriented and was mostly focused on the negative aspects of physical and mental health. Social contacts were an important contributor to well-being, especially when physical health declined. Although most participants seem hardly aware of having influence on their own health, several participants showed automatic self-management abilities.Conclusion: For participants who need more support to improve, or become more aware of their self-management abilities, interventions with an experience-oriented approach are needed.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:Along with the current aging demographics in the Netherlands, the number of older first-generation migrants is also increasing. Despite studies suggesting a higher quantity of social contacts of migrants, loneliness is more common among migrants as compared to native Dutch. We theorize that migrants experience more emotional and social loneliness due to a lower satisfaction with social relationships and lower participation in social activities, respectively, compared to their native counterparts.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS:We use data from Statistics Netherlands (N = 7,920) with first-generation migrants aged 40 years and older and their Dutch counterparts. Contact frequency, household composition, satisfaction with social relationships, relationship quality with the partner, and social activities, are used as main predictors and separate regression models for social and emotional loneliness are analyzed.RESULTS:Compared to the native Dutch, first-generation migrants are both socially and emotionally more lonely. Migrants have a similar contact frequency as the native Dutch, but are less satisfied with their social relationships, which contributes to their higher emotional, social, and overall loneliness. Migrants engage less in social activities but this does not put them at additional risk of loneliness.DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS:Migrants experience more social and emotional loneliness and are less satisfied with their social relationships compared to their native counterparts. Interventions should focus on reducing both social and emotional loneliness among older migrants. Specific attention should be paid to fostering satisfying social interactions. Additionally, encouraging migrants to broaden their social network may reduce social loneliness.

Improvement of volunteering rates in the Netherlands is important because increased productivity among older adults would contribute to societal sustainability in the light of population aging. Therefore, a better understanding of volunteer motivations of Dutch older adults is needed. The Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) for assessing volunteer motivations has good psychometric properties and is adapted to several languages, but no validated Dutch translation yet exists. The aim of the current study is to validate the VFI for use in the Dutch older population (60 years and over). The Dutch-translated VFI (6 scales, 30 items) is included in the Lifelines ‘Daily Activities and Leisure Activities add-on Study’, which was distributed among participants aged 60 to 80. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) are performed to assess the validity of the translated VFI. Internal consistency is assessed by computing Cronbach’s α’s. Results of the EFA (N = 4208) point towards a six-factor solution with a nearly perfectly clean structure. Deletion of three problematic items results in a clean factor structure. CFA results indicate moderate model fit (RMSEA = 0.06, CFI = 0.90, TLI = 0.89). Cronbach’s α’s (0.78 to 0.85) indicate good internal consistency. Goodness-of-fit indices are sufficient and comparable to those obtained in the validation of the original VFI. The current study provides support for use of the Dutch-translation of the VFI (6 scales, 27 items) to assess volunteer motivations among Dutch volunteers aged 60 years and over.

Well-being is a core concept for both individuals, groups and societies. Greater understanding of trajectories of well-being in later life may contribute to the achievement and maintenance of well-being for as many as possible. This article reviews two main approaches to well-being: hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, and shows that it is not chronological age per se, but various factors related to age that underlie trajectories of well-being at older ages. Next to the role of genes, heritability and personality traits, well-being is determined to a substantial extent by external circumstances and resources (e.g., health and social relationships), and to malleable individual behaviors and beliefs (e.g., self-regulatory ability and control beliefs). Although many determinants have been identified, it remains difficult to decide which of them are most important. Moreover, the role of some determinants varies for different indicators of well-being, such as positive affect and life satisfaction. Several prominent goal- and need-based models of well-being in later life are discussed, which explicate mechanisms underlying trajectories of well-being at older ages. These are the model of Selection, Optimization, and Compensation, the Motivational Theory of Lifespan Development, Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory, Ryff’s model of Psychological Well-Being, Self-Determination Theory, and Self-Management of Well-being theory. Also, interventions based on these models are reviewed, although not all of them address older adults. It is concluded that the literature on well-being in later life is enormous, and, together with various conceptual models, offers many important insights. Still, the field would benefit from more theoretical integration, and from more attention to the development and testing of theory-based interventions. This remains a challenge for the science of well-being in later life, and could be an important contribution to the well-being of a still growing proportion of the population.

Currently, no valid scales exist to compare volunteer motivations between volunteers and non-volunteers. We aimed to adapt the Dutch version of the Volunteer Functions Inventory (VFI) in order to make it applicable for the comparison of volunteer motivations between Dutch older volunteers and non-volunteers. The Dutch version of the VFI was included in the Lifelines 'Daily Activities and Leisure Activities add on Study', which was distributed among participants aged 60 to 80. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models were estimated for volunteers and non-volunteers separately, and subsequently a CFA model was created based on all observations irrespective of volunteer status. Finally, group-based CFA models were estimated to assess measurement invariance. The resulting measurement instrument (6 factors, 18 items), containing both a volunteer version and a non-volunteer version, indicated an acceptable model fit for the separate and the combined CFA models (root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.06, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.95). Group-based models demonstrated strong invariance between the samples. The current study provides support for the validity of the Dutch Comparative Scale for Assessing Volunteer Motivations among Volunteers and Non-Volunteers, among Dutch older adults.

When implementing an empirically supported intervention (ESI) arrays of influencing factors operate on the professional and organizational level, but so far dependency between these levels has often been ignored. The aim of this study is to describe the pace and identify determinants of implementation of the Self-Management of Well-being (SMW) group intervention while taking the dependency between professionals and organizations into account.

Spousal caregiving offers a unique opportunity to investigate how gender shapes the influence of care responsibilities on health at older ages. However, empirical evidence supporting a causal link between the transitions into and out of caregiving and health is mixed. This study investigates the influence of spousal care transitions on the health of older men and women living in 17 European countries. We use five waves of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) between the years 2004 and 2015 for a total of 43,435 individuals and 117,831 observations. Health is defined as a Frailty Index calculated from 40 items. Caregiving is defined as intensive help with personal care provided to spouses. Results from asymmetric fixed-effects linear regression models show that the transitions into caregiving have a detrimental effect on health. On the contrary, the transitions out of caregiving have in most cases no beneficial consequences on health. Most importantly, we found evidence supporting differential effects of caregiving transitions by gender and welfare arrangement: the transitions out of caregiving are associated with better health conditions only for Southern and Eastern European women. Our study highlights the asymmetric and gendered nature of care transitions and suggests that the impact of caregiving is somewhat permanent and has long lasting effects for the caregiver. Policies should account for this asymmetry when assessing the impact and consequences of caregiving.