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Between Successful and Unsuccessful Ageing: Selected Aspects and Contexts
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We provide to readers the 11th volume of the “Czech-Polish-Slovak Studies in Andragogy and Social Gerontology” series. We are delighted to announce that the presented study is the result of the work of scientists from seven countries: Austria, China, Ghana, Hungary, Japan, Poland, and Russia. This international collection of texts is part of the global discourse on the determinants of adult education and the functioning of people in late adulthood. The 11th volume is a collection of research results that show both the positive and negative dimensions of ageing through the prism of research experience from various geographical and cultural areas.
The researchers invited to the presented volume tried to illustrate the issues assigned to the following topics: ageing with dignity; retirement age; assumptions and conditions resulting from living in the home; the relationship between challenges concerning life expectancy and needs; care and ageing services; and foundations and potential changes in pension systems. The research results presented in this volume have a common denominator, which is caring for the quality of life of the older people regardless of their place of residence. Thus, the study “Between Successful and Unsuccessful Ageing: Selected Aspects and Contexts” brings new insights from scientists who scrupulously characterize the complexity of processes that affect the positive and negative conditions of functioning in old age, which is a mosaic of various nuances.
Inviting readers to familiarize themselves with the content of the monograph, we would like to thank the reviewers who contributed to the improvement of the quality of the texts and open new fields for participation in further joint publishing projects.
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... MacLeod et al. [103] on the basis of an extensive literature review reported that older people with high levels of resilience demonstrate a range of positive outcomes including successful aging and enhanced longevity. On the matter of successful 'successful aging' Tomczyk and Kilmczuk [104] recommended a selection of valuable articles that challenge the limited model on successful aging as proposed by Rowe and Kahn [105]. In particular, Evseeva [106] revealed how postmodern critical gerontologists identified that past "concepts of successful ageing individualize and psychologize ageing and ignore power relations and structural inequalities in society" (p. ...
While increases in life expectancy along with extended longevity can be seen as a success story, there remains the central issue surrounding the health and quality of life for increasing numbers of older people. As populations live longer the idea that older people should be empowered to remain active and productive citizens will be paramount. Questions concerning the meaningfulness, purpose and desirability of living longer present an existential challenge for all and sundry. It is clear, that the speed of population aging has made many existing policies, support services and social structures obsolete and thereby societies worldwide will need to face the profound challenges of rethinking aging and old age in wholly different ways. The need to combat ageism including a re-conceptualization of successful aging is seen to be a critical undertaking to promote healthy and productive aging. In particular, understanding the lived experiences of older people warrants deeper focus surrounding the complex interconnections between agency, social structures and quality of life. Insights and perspectives on human finitude, resilient aging, and self-care are offered for the purpose of highlighting their prospective associations with health outcomes in later life. Human longevity presents new realities demanding serious collaborative conversations on heterogeneity, equity and social justice in the context of a rights-based approach to aging policy.
... As a result, the most important problem of the PAYG system, its dependence on demographics, is eliminated. I have demonstrated the errors of the PAYG system, and the principles according to which an HC system should be constructed, in several studies (Banyár 2016a(Banyár , 2017(Banyár , 2019a(Banyár , 2019b(Banyár , 2019c. However, the focus of these studies was always a description of the problems associated with PAYG, and I was only able to explain in a very limited manner how an HC system could actually be constructed. ...
The broadly used pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension system is intrinsically wrong. The essence of the problem is that the PAYG system distributes the yield of raising children, i.e., of human capital investment (which is essentially the pension contribution), in such a way that it disregards the extent to which individuals have contributed to this, and even whether it has occurred at all. This error can be corrected if we take the pension contribution to be the yield on an investment of human capital, and as such use this to pay back the costs and expenses of the raising of the contribution payer—overall to those who paid these costs and expenses at the time. Accordingly, the central question of my study is whether it is possible to construct a consistent pension system based on the above foundations, and how my ideas may be inserted into the Diamond–Samuelson model. The method of the study was logical analysis and the construction of a theoretical mathematical model. The results of the study show that it is possible to construct a public pension system that operates according to a different logic than today’s system, a system which is free from the effects of demographic fluctuations, which does not motivate the refusal to have children, and which will remain self-sufficient under all circumstances. The study achieves this by presenting a possible pension system of this kind in detail. Via the suitable modification of the Diamond–Samuelson model, I have succeeded in showing that the pension system I am proposing increases the willingness to have children up to the social optimum, in contrast to the fully (but traditionally) funded and PAYG systems. This system currently only exists in theory and may be regarded as a major theoretical innovation, which naturally has certain (although not particularly extensive) antecedents. Its introduction could enable the resolution of the contradictions of existing pension systems and could also provide a solution to the as yet unsolved problem of the increasingly expensive regeneration of human capital, and as such, its potential practical implications are immeasurable.
... Employee retirement planning should not be a concern only during the second half of employee's life, but rather from start of employment (Gathiira et al., 2019b;Tomczyk & Klimczuk, 2019). Workers with higher retirement self-efficacy tend to plan their retirement in advance (Valero & Topa, 2014). ...
Globally, majority of employees particularly from public institutions are associated with poverty during retirement despite living well during employment life. Retirement preparedness is viewed as a deliberate planning process by an individual and ought to start a long while before actual organization – employee separation. It is therefore important to relook at the concept of employee separation planning and retirement preparedness when it is mediated by employee decision which is integral to the life mastery of control that an individual exhibit. The target population was 1,238 teachers aged 50 years and above and employed in public secondary schools in Kenya by 2017. A representative sample of 334 respondents was selected using multistage sampling technique. Data was collected using semi structured questionnaire and interview guide. Logit regression was used to establish the relationships between variables in the study and to test the null hypotheses at P ≤ 0.05 and 95% confidence level. The study found that employee decision making had partial mediating effect on the relationship between employee separation planning and retirement preparedness. The study recommended the government and the employer organizations to enact frameworks that encourages and stimulates employees to make decisions to engage in programmes geared towards separation planning for successful retirement preparedness.
There are a variety of mediums through which the phenomenon of socialization is elicited. One of such means is social media platforms. But benefiting from this medium is dependent on the attribute of being technologically savvy intergenerational dynamics notwithstanding. This mixed methods study investigates the influence of social media on cultural connotations of socialization and body image enhancement, and how they shape changes in appearances. Use was made of survey [n=361] data to explore social media dynamics in relation to the process of socialization, while the interview [n=10] data explicated the issues raised in the frame of cross-sectional design. Bivariate and thematic analyzes were respectively conducted. The findings indicate that intergenerational outcomes of the uses of social media between younger and older people is skewed towards younger people and the inherent gap therefore pertains. The Cramer’s V test value of .612 intimates a strong association between social media’s visual images and the type of body image enhancement undertaken. This has implications for technological literacy among older Ghanaian adults. The culture of body image enhancement is learned and therefore has been learned through social media induced socialization by virtue of social media’s oriented social interaction. Put differently, this form of socialization unleashes the availability, accessibility and exposure to certain images that precipitate a desired need for transformation of an existing body image. By and large, culture is created and transmitted from generation to generation. This paper offers newer insights into the phenomenon of socialization and the attendant lifestyle change nemesis, outlining the fact that the effects of social media imagery in both text and visual images is socialization.
The need to strengthen the traditional family and community level institution systems to be able to provide social protection services to the aged in the face of the serious weaknesses in the formal social protection service for the aged.
The study present how in the late 1930s-1940s a new, modern pension system was introduced in America without any theoretical basis, as a kind of arbitrary mix of existing pension systems, to replace the by then non-functioning “traditional pension system” in which working children maintained their ageing parents in exchange for having been raised. Later, in 1958, they found an ideology for the system, “solidarity between generations,” but this didn’t fit in with the system’s economic foundations, with the fact that the modern, pay-as-you-go pension system distributes the profits of raising children amongst the older generation regardless of how much people have contributed to it. This made raising children unprofitable, which provided a strong incentive to avoid it, thus launching the ageing process. Moreover, the modern pension system, also as a result of ageing, is making increasingly large and uncovered promises to the retired generation. The system may be repaired by matching the asset (raising children) side to the liabilities (pension promise) side, for example, by only promising a pension to those who have contributed to the system (through raising children or accumulating savings), and only to the extent of that contribution. Contribution payments are an obligation, the repayment of the cost of people’s upbringing, with relation to which no pension is automatically due. By doing so, the 3rd pillar of the modern pension system will also have been capitalized using a special kind of capital: human capital.
Background: This study investigates home ownership and its apparent health outcomes in Urban Ghana, utilizing both quantitative and qualitative datasets. Methods: The sample for the study consisted of 442 respondents using a multi-stage sampling technique. Results: The context in which houses are situated affects social support networks, physical and mental health outcomes. House ownership is then a precondition that enables social contact within neighborhoods. A Cramer’s V test value of 0.750 suggests a strong association between house ownership and health outcomes. Conclusion: House acquisition and ownership can potentially improve overall physical, and mental health and wellbeing.
The paper examines how the healthcare and social care pillars of social policy for aging societies shape inequalities in health and well-being at old age, utilizing qualitative and quantitative datasets. The results intimate the lack of geriatric infrastructure, hence the inadequacy of geriatric care provision for older adults. Systemic problems or gaps existent in Ghana led to private individuals taking advantage of the situation, turning it into an opportunity for service providers. Thus, the evolution of recreational/residential homes in Ghana is situated along three distinct patterns or forms namely the occasional, the adult day care center and residential archetypes. Collectively, these constitute formal and informal care facilities. These are often privately owned and at a cost. The nature of quality of care may be affected by the types of homes available, especially in the globalized cultural setting. A growing number of older adults resort to care homes as an alternative measure. These are discussed from two viewpoints. First, geriatric data generation, the absence of which impedes healthcare provision. Second, cash-for-care policies may exacerbate existing inequalities in care with negative consequences for health and well-being. In short, policies for aging populations are being implemented across Ghana with too little known about their consequences for inequalities in health and well-being in later life. The paper sought to address this knowledge gap by exploring a significant infrastructure by undertaking a systematic examination of how recent policy developments for aging exacerbate or reduce inequalities in health and well-being among older adults. The paper concludes that social policy for aging societies' specific key pillars (healthcare and social care research) offers opportunities for analyzing and understanding internal dynamics including the effects of policy implementation for inequalities in health and well-being at older ages, therefore enabling the identification of strategies to improve older adults' circumstances, without which older adult population will far outpace elder care provision.
The book explains the historic development of pension schemes from the British Colonial Government to the present day Ghana. It highlights the three tier pension system that was introduced in Ghana from 2010. The chapter 11 of the book contains the calculations of SSNIT pension as well as the CAP30 pension benefits.
BOOK is copyrighted and is NOT available for DOWNLOAD. Fourth edition (new & used copies) available from https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Survey-Research-Quantitative-Methods/dp/1138043397
Intended for people who want to learn how to conduct quantitative studies for a project in an undergraduate course, a graduate-level thesis, or a survey that an employer may want completed. This brief, practical textbook prepares beginners to conduct their own survey research and write up the results, as well as read and interpret other people's research. It combines survey design with data analysis and interpretation.
And it is for those who need to understand and critically interpret survey research found in scholarly journals, reports distributed in the workplace, and social scientific findings presented online in the media, on a blog, or in social media postings.