Suchergebnisse

"To meet the challenges of population ageing, currently is one of the most striking political and societal tasks in nearly all European countries. Population ageing can be regarded as both drivers for social change as well as point of departure for social innovations which are seen as one of the adequate answers to tackle with its challenges. This paper starts with the authors' own understanding of social innovation. Secondly the authors describe population ageing in its different challenges for both the ageing population as well as for the society as a whole. It will be shown that population ageing affects more or less all sectors of society and in consequence asks for cross-sector policy approaches. The special focus of this paper is to look at social innovations answering to population ageing in the context of the 'productivity discourse'. In doing this, the authors are presenting the integrated use of technology and social services in order to support independent housing/ living at home even in the case of being needy of care as an example of age-related social innovation. In the wake of population ageing new potentials for social innovation are generated which are insofar of essential importance as there are many new products and services developed especially for the elderly, which support 'independent living' in old age. Moreover, at the same time they generate positive effects on economic growth and employment (market innovation) which will be discussed under the heading of 'Silver Economy'. In this context networked living (or: Ambient Assisted Living - AAL) will be presented as a special type of social innovation being at the interface between technology and social services. Networked living is not only understood as integration of information and communication technologies but also as social cross-linking of different industries, technologies, services and other key players." (author's abstract)

"Das Referat setzt an einem paradoxen Phänomen alternder Gesellschaften an. Weder der höhere medizinische und gesundheitliche Standard und dessen positiven Folgen für die Leistungsfähigkeit Älterer, noch die gestiegene Lebenserwartung führen zu einer 'natürlichen' Anpassung von Altersbildern. Im Gegenteil, momentan gehört 'Ageism' (Altersstereotype und zugehörige Diskriminierungen) zur Alltagskultur. Das Defizitmodell des Alters bleibt - wider lebensweltlicher Erfahrungen und wissenschaftlicher Befunde - offenbar deutungsmächtig. Im medialen Diskurs werden zudem die Prognosen der Demographen zu Vorhersagen von Naturkatastrophen stilisiert und damit eine Hysterie gegenüber Alterungsprozessen angeheizt. Gleichzeitig wird deutlich, dass ältere Arbeitnehmer nicht nur länger arbeiten könnten, sondern dieses nun auch als notwendig und erforderlich diskutiert wird. Daraus ergeben sich für die Soziologie des Alterns eine Reihe brisanter Forschungsfragen. Im Referat wird zunächst der Begriff 'Ageism' definiert und ein höchst unterschiedlicher Stand der Forschung und des politischen Umgangs mit Altersdiskriminierung im Gesellschaftsvergleich deutlich. Danach wird modernisierungstheoretisch begründet, warum die Anpassung von Personalpolitiken an die Erfordernisse des demographischen Wandels nicht ohne kritische Diskussion zum Phänomen des Ageism auskommen wird. Basis der Ausführungen sind Vorüberlegungen und erste Ergebnisse zweier Projekte, die an der FU Berlin und der Universität Kassel durchgeführt werden. Hintergrund beider Untersuchungen sind die konkreten Anforderungen der Einigungspolitik der Europäischen Union bezüglich der Antidiskriminierungsanforderungen und alternder Arbeitsmärkte." (Autorenreferat)

This book contains reports written by scientists from the German Centre of Gerontology (DZA) on the situation of people in the second half of life during the Covid-19 pandemic. The focus is on the first two waves of the pandemic, summer 2020 and winter 2020/2021, in Germany. The analyses are based on the German Ageing Survey (DEAS), a longitudinal study that has been running since 1996 and, hence, allows us to compare the pre-pandemic situation with the situation after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings concern people aged between 46 and 90 living in private households (residents of long-term care facili-ties could not be included in these analyses; see Kaspar et al. (2023) for more information on this topic). The book describes different facets of the living situ-ations of people in the second half of life, from work and income to subjective well-being and social support to societal participation. Although the book was originally written in German for the public discourse in Germany, we felt it was important to also publish our findings in English to contribute to international research discussions on ageing and policies for older people. In this introductory chapter, we describe (1) the epidemiological, social and political situation in Ger-many at the beginning of the pandemic, (2) the research questions that guided our reporting, (3) the German Ageing Survey (DEAS), which forms the basis of our empirical analyses, and (4) central findings of the chapters in this book.