Challenges Experienced at Age 100: Findings From the Fordham Centenarian Study

ABSTRACT

This article examines the challenges experienced by very old individuals and their consequences for well-being and mental health. In order to capture unique issues experienced in very old age, 75 participants of the population-based Fordham Centenarian Study answered open-ended questions on everyday challenges. Theme-based coding was then used to categorize and quantify responses. The challenges mentioned most often were challenges faced in the functional (e.g., physical health/activities of daily living restrictions, mobility, sensory impairment), psychological (e.g., loss of well-liked activity, dependency, negative emotions, death), and social (e.g., family loss) life domains. Functional challenges were negatively associated with aging satisfaction and positively associated with loneliness. Psychological challenges were positively linked to aging satisfaction. Social challenges were marginally related to loneliness. Notably, challenges were not related to depression. In conclusion, the challenges experienced in very old age are multidimensional and multifaceted, unique in nature, and have differential relations to mental health. Functional, psychological, and social challenges affect very old individuals’ lives and therefore need to be better understood and addressed. Given their consequences, it is imperative for policy makers to develop an awareness for the different types of challenges faced by centenarians, as there may be unique policy implications related to each.     

The Subjectivity of Fairness: Managerial Discretion and Work–Life Balance

We use organizational justice theory to examine how perceptions of fairness affect the decision‐making process of line managers. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 35 Irish managers to explore how managers make organizational allocation decisions in cases where it is impractical to offer work–life balance accommodations to all employees. The findings suggest that firstly, managers construct the ‘life’ aspect of work–life balance within a heteronormative framework, where the emphasis is on caregiving and most usually parenting. Secondly, managers actively use their decision‐making powers around both formal and informal work–life balance supports to minimize injustice within their departments. By bringing together ideas about organizational justice and managerial decision‐making, we indicate how managers determine fairness through a decision‐making process narrowed by embedded gender role beliefs. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

Making Sense of After‐School Care Dilemmas in Mothers' Stories of After‐School Care in Finland and Sweden

The study focuses on dilemmas in storied experiences of everyday after‐school care arrangements among Swedish and Finnish mothers. Finland and Sweden, which share a history of strong labour market attachment among women, arrange institutional after‐school care in similar ways. The data consist of interviews with three Swedish and six Finnish mothers. A positioning analysis of four stories shows how decisions related to children's after‐school hours were allocated among different actors. Two reoccurring dilemmas, Competent‐dependent child stories and Unburdened‐deficient mother stories, emerged from the data analysis as related to prevailing moral discourses on childhood and motherhood.     

Asking about the future: methodological insights from energy biographies

Temporality is fundamental to qualitative longitudinal (QLL) research, inherent in the design of returning to participants over time, often to explore moments of change. Previous research has indicated that talking about the future can be difficult, yet there has been insufficient discussion of methodological developments to address these challenges. This paper presents insights from the Energy Biographies project, which has taken a QLL and multimodal approach to investigating how everyday energy use can be understood in relation to biographical pasts and imagined futures. In particular, we detail innovative techniques developed within the project (e.g. SMS photograph activities) to elicit data on anticipated futures, in ways that engender thinking about participants’ own biographical futures and wider societal changes. We conclude by considering some of the significant benefits and challenges such techniques present. These methodological insights have a wider relevance beyond the substantive topic for those interested in eliciting data about futures in qualitative research.     

Arenas of comfort and conflict: peer relationship events and young people's educational attainment

Previous research suggests that developments in young people's peer relationships may either compound or alleviate the adverse impacts of other major life changes during adolescence. We explored this proposition with respect to young people's educational attainment upon leaving high school, using longitudinal data from a large cohort of Australian secondary school students (n?=?1612) who have taken part in the Our Lives research study between the ages of 12/13 and 19/20 years. Our analysis focused on the role of peer relationship events such bullying, friendship problems, falling in love, and breaking up with someone. Bullying and romantic involvement were associated with lower odds of receiving a competitive tertiary entrance rank at the end of high school. However, close, resilient friendships – in which status and identity conflicts may be more easily tolerated and resolved – may help to offset the role of these other events. As well as reviewing the consequences of our findings for young people's educational and occupational trajectories in the longer-term, we highlight their implications for future research and policy in this area.     

Good personal finances or a strong social capital—on different life conditions of importance for an active life when becoming alone in old age

Becoming alone in old age can be a decisive life event that brings major changes depending on various causes as health status, financial resources, family situation, and available welfare services. This article discusses the situation of older people in Sweden who have transitioned from a two-person to single-person household in recent years and what impact this might have on their everyday lives. Through in-depth interviews with 18 older people, age 67–90, their experiences about life conditions and opportunities were examined. Findings showed large differences between the men and women. They all tried to live as they always had done and they used the same personal life strategies that they always had. But the men could live as before on their own financial merits, while the women needed assistance from children, grandchildren and the welfare system. Transportation options were central and clearly related to both private economy and social services available. Shortcomings in the welfare state's way of caring for the elderly were clearly uncovered. The gap between social policy promises of opportunities for autonomy and independence to live an active life in old age and the everyday reality for older people still seems to be wide.     

Male gamblers – suicide victims and living controls: comparison of adversity over the life course

The objective of this research is to investigate the possible difference in accumulation of adversity over the life course among decedent gamblers and living control gamblers in the province of Quebec, Canada. A sample of 90 adult men, 41 living participants and 49 suicide decedents, met the criteria for at-risk and problem gambling over the last five years. Data were obtained from informants in the case of suicide and directly from living controls during semi-structured face-to-face interviews using SCID I and II, SOGS, Module K and a recount of life trajectories methodology. The results showed a high level of adversity throughout the life trajectories of both groups. However, the living gamblers faced more difficulties during their lifespan than the suicide victims. In the last six months before their death, suicide victims had a significantly higher number of mental health disorders, especially co-morbid mental health disorders and anxiety, compared to the living controls. We also observed a rapid escalation of difficulties, more life events and more psychological distress in the last six months of their lives among the suicide decedents. Suicidal behaviour needs to be carefully investigated by medical staff and mental health practitioners, especially when gamblers demonstrate evidence of mental health disorders or financial difficulties.     

析体育生活对大学生社会化发展的影响

文章分析了处于青春期的大学生在社会化过程中的个体心理和社会心理的需要以及社会对大学生发展的要求,指出大学生的社会化发展是个体内在需要和社会环境影响辩证统一发展的结果.体育生活是大学生社会化发展所需的重要的社会环境和主要内容,对大学生的社会化发展有着非常重要的意义.     

孔子育人思想的价值目标——"君子"(论纲)

孔子毕生致力于塑造一个“君子”的形象,他“述而不作”,是通过自己全部的言论和行为来完成的。从“君子”一词的来历、诸多内涵的构成、整个形象的特色和相关问题,结合孔子的言行进行系列的探讨,以解读孔子留给后人的“君子”形象。     

略论杜甫诗中劳动妇女形象的悲剧美

以对《石壕吏》、《新婚别》、《又呈吴郎》三首诗歌来解读杜甫所塑造的老妪、新娘、寡妇三种类型的劳动妇女形象,并进一步分析这些劳动妇女形象所体现出的一种在苦难生活中诞生的坚强生命的悲剧美。