Context The demographic context for the EIWO project is continued population ageing and, especially, growth in the numbers of very elderly people, which applies to all four countries in this project: Germany, Poland, Sweden and the UK. However, the common ageing trend is unequally distributed. In particular there remain significant gaps in life expectancy (LE) and health life expectancy (HLE) both between countries and within them. For example LE differences based on socio-economic status, income, and education are present in all four countries. In terms of HLE, Swedish women have HLE at birth, that is, on average, 6 years longer than German women, 8 years longer than Polish women and 11 years longer than British women.

Gender issues, and specifically the lack of women in the physical sciences, has been a subject of intense debate for decades. The problem is so acute, that national initiatives have been developed to analyse and address the issues, with some success in STEM, particularly in higher education and also in industry. However, despite this progress, there is little understanding as to why women are less likely to study the chemical sciences in particular. In this research, a survey and interviews were used to find out why female A-level chemistry students choose, or do not choose, to study chemistry at higher education level. Two distinct phases were identified. Firstly, intelligence gathering to understand the location, content, entry requirements, and career options for potential course and institution combinations. Secondly, self-reflection to establish whether, knowing themselves, students feel as though they would be successful on a particular course at a particular institution. These findings align with research into gender imbalance in STEM and Higher Education more broadly, but go beyond this to broaden current debates with a focus on chemistry in particular.

PurposeSince the start of the Carers’ Movement research into unpaid care and carers has been used to advocate for policy change. The purpose of this paper is to address the changes in research into unpaid care and carers since the start of the Carers’ Movement and to explore the relationship between these changes and social policy.Design/methodology/approachThis research paper is based on a qualitative study of documents within the Carers UK archive.FindingsResearch into unpaid care and carers has changed focus from caregiving as an identity and lifestyle to an interruption to “normal” life and employment. Changes in research are intertwined with changes in policy, with research evidencing advocation for policy change and policy change fuelling further research. Changes in the methodology of this research exposes transition points in the Carers’ Movement and in social research more broadly.Practical implicationsThis paper contributes to critical understandings of the relationship between research into unpaid care and caring and policy. The paper also contributes to debates on methodology, exploring how the methodological zeitgeist presents in archived research.Social implicationsUnderstanding how current research into unpaid care and carers has been developed and acknowledging the role of policy in research development brings available data on unpaid care and caring under scrutiny.Originality/valueThis paper is original in developing a critical analysis of the relationship between research into unpaid care and carers and social policy.

This field report provides detailed information on the methodological approach as well as on the process of data collection and analysis in EIWO project III – “Mechanisms and Origins of Late Working Life Exclusion”. EIWO project III is part of the qualitative part of the EIWO programme and is – together with EIWO project VI, VII, and VIII from phase II – one of the four projects in which primary data is collected. EIWO uses a mixed-methods approach in its nine sub-projects, so that quantitative and qualitative methods are used in combination to investigate – from a life course perspective – the topic of late working life and the potential of extension of working lives on different levels (micro, meso and macro level). Due to the different methodological approaches, results from some projects provide evidence for further investigations in other sub-projects, whereby, for example, results of the qualitative investigations can be validated using large data sets. In projects in the field of life course research, a mixed-methods approach is widely used because it allows for a detailed investigation of the structural, institutional and individual factors influencing the life course. EIWO project III focuses in particular on the micro level by taking the perspective of individuals and thus provides a basis on which quantitative analyses, e.g. in EIWO project IV, can be built on. “The main aims of project III are to analyse the nature and sources of inequalities in late working life employment/retirement and to identify individual/family responses and coping strategies” (Application EIWO programme). Based on these aims, the following research questions were formulated for EIWO project III: What events and circumstances can be identified over the life course that lead to social inequalities/exclusion in late working life employment from the individual perspective? What are the explanatory mechanisms? How are exclusion risks and inequalities assessed on the individual level in late working life? Do persons experience social inequalities/exclusion? If they experience exclusion/inequalities: What coping strategies are/were used to reduce inequalities/exclusion? What can be learned from individual responses as to how meso-level organisational policies and macro-level social policies help or hinder transitions? In the following, it will be described why a qualitative research approach was chosen for this project and what characterises this approach. Then, the research instruments and the inclusion criteria for the sample will be explained. The third chapter illustrates the field phase, including the recruitment phase, the final composition of the sample and the conduct of the interviews, as well as challenges that arose during the field phase and the chosen approaches. Finally, the data analysis method is discussed and the report is concluded with a short summary.