An article examined social exclusion and poverty in relation to rural older people. State-provided income programmes were crucial to reducing poverty among older people, and data to indicate progress on addressing any of the more relational aspects of social exclusion were 'largely insufficient'.
Source: Suzanne Moffatt and Nina Glasgow, 'How useful is the concept of social exclusion when applied to rural older people in the United Kingdom and the United States?', Regional Studies, Volume 43 Number 10
Links: Abstract
Date: 2009-Dec
There were an estimated 36,700 excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2008-09 – an increase of 49 per cent on the previous year, and the highest number since 1999-2000.
Source: Excess Winter Mortality in England and Wales: 2008/09 (Provisional) and 2007/08 (Final), Office for National Statistics (0845 601 3034)
Links: Report | ONS press release | NEA press release | ERA press release | Community Care report
Date: 2009-Nov
The government announced that it would rename council tax benefit as 'council tax rebate' as part of a campaign to encourage pensioners to claim the help they were entitled to.
Source: Press release 6 November 2009, Department for Work and Pensions (020 7712 2171)
Links: DWP press release
Date: 2009-Nov
The government responded to a report by a committee of MPs on pensioner poverty.
Source: Tackling Pensioner Poverty: Government Response to the Fifth Report, Fourth Special Report (Session 2008-09), HC 1029, House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Response | MPs report
Date: 2009-Oct
An article examined the effects of ageing on the relationship between standard of living, as measured by various deprivation indices, and income. For most indices, ageing increased deprivation when controlling for income and other factors. The exception was a subjective index of 'financial strain', which appeared to fall as people aged.
Source: Richard Berthoud, Morten Blekesaune and Ruth Hancock, 'Ageing, income and living standards: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey', Ageing and Society, Volume 29 Issue 7
Links: Abstract
Date: 2009-Oct
A new book examined poverty and exclusion in old age. It highlighted the gaps in treatment and outcomes between older and younger people, and between different groups of older people.
Source: Paul Cann and Malcolm Dean (eds.), Unequal Ageing: The untold story of exclusion in old age, Policy Press, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Summary
Date: 2009-Sep
A report examined spending patterns among older households between 1995 and 2007. Higher energy prices between 2004 and 2007 coincided with substantially higher fuel spending and lower fuel consumption for older households.
Source: Andrew Leicester, Cormac O'Dea and Zoe Oldfield, The Expenditure Experience of Older Households, Commentary 111, Institute for Fiscal Studies (020 7291 4800)
Links: Report | IFS press release | Age Concern press release | ERA press release | Guardian report | Telegraph report | Community Care report
Date: 2009-Aug
A report examined social exclusion among people aged 60 and over who experienced multiple 'risk markers', using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and the British Household Panel Survey.
Source: Elizabeth Becker and Richard Boreham, Understanding the Risks of Social Exclusion Across the Life Course: Older age, Social Exclusion Task Force/Cabinet Office (020 7276 1234)
Links: Report
Date: 2009-Jul
A report by a committee of MPs said that the number of pensioners living in poverty was one-third lower than it had been in 1997. But it called on the government to commit itself to ending pensioner poverty altogether. The complexity of the benefits system was highlighted as a key cause of poverty, with some 1.7 million older people failing to claim money to which they were entitled. It also called for the default retirement age to be abolished, and for protection from discrimination for older workers to be strengthened, to ensure that every pensioner who wished to could continue working.
Source: Tackling Pensioner Poverty, Fifth Report (Session 2008-09), HC 411, House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | Guardian report | BBC report
Date: 2009-Jul
A paper examined the processes underlying payment of attendance allowance in the older population. The results suggested that there were many potentially successful claims that were not pursued.
Source: Stephen Pudney, Participation in Disability Benefit Programmes: A partial identification analysis of the British attendance allowance system, Working Paper 2009-19, Institute for Social and Economic Research/University of Essex (01206 873087)
Links: Working paper | Abstract
Date: 2009-Jun
Campaigners said that younger grandparents caring for their grandchildren and their own elderly parents were increasingly being caught in a poverty trap. One-third of grandparents aged under 55 were struggling financially.
Source: Julia Griggs, The Poor Relation? Grandparental care: where older people's poverty and child poverty meet, Grandparents Plus (020 8981 8001)
Links: Report | PRTC press release | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2009-Jun
A report presented findings from a small qualitative study of older people, which looked at attitudes to the principle of automatic awards of pension credit as a means of improving take-up.
Source: Mehul Kotecha, Meg Callanan, Sue Arthur and Chris Creegan, Older People's Attitudes to Automatic Awards of Pension Credit, Research Report 579, Department for Work and Pensions (0113 399 4040)
Date: 2009-May
A paper examined the main factors determining pensioners' needs for income, and whether they were likely to have enough money to cover their needs and expectations throughout retirement. Pensioners tended to remain active in their 60s and might desire relatively high levels of retirement income – before seeing income needs reduce in their 70s as they became less active. But the onset of disability, widowhood, and the need for long-term care could all contribute to higher costs in later retirement when pensioners were in their 80s and 90s.
Source: Daniela Silcock, Sean James and John Adams, Retirement Income and Assets: Do pensioners have sufficient income to meet their needs?, Pensions Policy Institute (020 7848 3744) Links: Paper | PPI press release | Professional Pensions report
Date: 2009-Apr
The government announced (in the 2009 Budget) that the state pension would rise by a guaranteed minimum of 2.5 per cent in 2010 (or in line with inflation, if higher). Pension credit would be made more widely available, to those with savings of up to £10,000 from November 2009 (rather than the existing limit of £6,000). The higher winter fuel allowance would be maintained for a further year – giving an extra £50 (up from £200 to £250) to households with someone aged over 60, and an extra £100 for those with someone aged over 80 (up from £300 to £400).
Source: Budget 2009: Building Britain's future, HC 407, HM Treasury, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Report | Hansard | HMT press release | Telegraph report
Date: 2009-Apr
A paper examined the impact of health on the savings and consumption decisions of elderly people. There were significant adjustments in the composition of consumption following the onset of an illness. These adjustments reflected mainly the combined effect of increased costs associated with illness onset, as well as the effect of constraints on opportunity to spend associated with illness onset.
Source: Eleni Karagiannaki, The Effect of Health on Consumption Decisions in Later Life: Evidence from the UK, CASEpaper 136, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion/London School of Economics (020 7955 6679)
Links: Paper
Date: 2009-Apr
A report examined how older people planned, used, and valued the different resources available to them; and the relative value of different structural, social, and individual resources. It highlighted the complexity of older people's lives, the variety of resources that people drew on to help manage change, and the work involved in maintaining continuity.
Source: Katherine Hill, Liz Sutton and Lynne Cox, Managing Resources in Later Life: Older people's experience of change and continuity, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (01904 629241)
Date: 2009-Feb
An article examined consumption by retired households in the areas of key consumer goods and components of household spending. It investigated how these expenditure trends compared with other household types, and across pseudo-birth cohorts. The data demonstrated the growing extent of ownership of key goods in retired households, but also showed the differences in proportional expenditure between retired households and employed people.
Source: Paul Higgs et al., 'From passive to active consumers? Later life consumption in the UK from 1968-2005', Sociological Review, Volume 57 Issue 1
Links: Abstract
Date: 2009-Jan
A paper examined the relationship between the family and work histories of older women and their individual incomes in later life, using retrospective data from the British Household Panel Survey. The associations between women's family histories and their incomes later in life were relatively weak, and in many cases insignificant.
Source: Tom Sefton, Maria Evandrou and Jane Falkingham, Family Ties: Women's work and family histories and their association with incomes in later life in the UK, CASEpaper 135, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion/London School of Economics (020 7955 6679)
Links: Paper
Date: 2009-Jan
