Taking care of older adults is among the major challenges currently faced by ageing populations. Researchers, designers, and engineers have proposed socially assistive robots as one way of helping elderly people stay in their homes longer. In a systematic literature review, this paper wants to investigate if and how evaluations of the acceptance of socially assistive robots by older people take into account sociodemographic factors. The results indicate that this only holds true for a few studies. Research that incorporates age, gender, education, and so forth; clearly shows that these key factors have a significant impact. However, the relations are complex and experience with technology mitigates the influence of sociodemographic factors on acceptance. Assistive devices should be adaptable to individual needs to be able to consider all these factors.

Population ageing occurs in all industrialised societies and is the demographic phenomenon that currently gets the highest attention from scientists, policy makers and the general public. The main aim of this paper is to broaden our understanding of its societal consequences, such as ageism and intergenerational solidarity. Our study is based on the  investigation of attitudes towards population ageing and older people in seven European countries of Schoenmaeckers et al. We replicate their analysis in a specific human subpopulation in which the process of population ageing started earlier and is much more advanced than in the general societies: the members of Catholic orders. The study compares the attitudes of  nuns and monks from three Bavarian monasteries to those of the western German general population using descriptive and multivariate analyses in the context of the debate around population ageing in Germany. We discuss the specific characteristics of order members that might influence their attitudes and also take a brief look at their views on possible political strategies to solve the problems connected with the demographic changes. Our results confirm the findings of Schoenmaeckers et al. and reveal that worldly and monastic populations show an identical basic pattern of a positive attitude towards older people while at the same time considering population ageing a worrisome development. However, order members evaluate older people's abilities and their role in society more positively. This result gives rise to the optimistic perspective that in an aged population the younger and older generations can build a wellfunctioning society. This process is caused by both sharp declines in fertility rates below replacement level (i.e. an average number of about . children per woman) and decreasing mortality rates among the old and the oldest-old (more details can be found in e.g. Goldstein ). Demographic projections reveal that population ageing is unavoidable in any population of the developed world (Powell ). Only the extent of this process differs between the countries depending on their levels of fertility and mortality (see e.g. Golini ; Lutz, Sanderson and Scherbov , ). Moreover, the ageing of the population will go hand in hand with a decrease of total population sizes. These developments are generally referred to as 'demographic change' and are the demographic phenomena with currently the greatest interest from scientists, policy makers and the general public. Above all, the rise of people in higher and highest ages causes many consequences of immediate relevance for society (e.g. Bernard and Phillips ; Harper ). For instance, population ageing has an instantaneous impact on the demand for social and medical services and raises the requirements for health care and the capacity of social security systems. The rising share of older people forces the population in working ages to contribute more financial resources for pension funds, health and nursing care insurance.Al...

Aim This paper examines the behavioural factors that are linked to the gender gap in mortality phenomenon and connects theoretical implications with the findings of a qualitative grounded theory research. Subject and methods Differences in the life expectancy of men and women are a well-known fact. Though several theories take into account the wide range of factors underlying this phenomenon, they can only partly explain it. To get a deeper understanding of these issues, we use a qualitative approach to study this topic from another point of view. Expert interviews with professionals in the medical field were conducted to gain insights about the health lifestyles of men and women that may reveal hypotheses as to why the gender gap in mortality is narrowing. Results The results bear in mind that apart from biological factors, behavioural factors are strongly connected to the gender gap in the mortality issue. Men and women tend to behave differently and their behaviour is linked to social norms and expectations. They have a different understanding of illness and also behave in different ways with regard to seeing doctors. However, because of changing gender roles due to changing norms and other influential factors, these health behaviour patterns have started to diminish. Conclusion A generational change in the health behaviour of men and women is currently taking place. Traditional gender roles are diminishing due to versatile attributes and behavioural patterns of men and women. This development may partly explain the narrowing of the gender gap in life expectancy in Austria.