Pathways to age-friendly communities in diverse urban neighborhoods: Do social capital and social cohesion matter?

Abstract

Using a social capital and social cohesion lens, we reposition the concept of civic engagement among older adults to examine pathways for building age-friendly communities. We analyzed data drawn from a Community-Based Participatory Research study in the Southern U.S. that explored lived experiences of older adults, age 55 and above, who participated in individual interviews (n = 15) and six focus group discussions (n = 45) to examine their perceptions of social identity, social connectedness, and civic engagement geared toward an age-friendly city. Findings indicated that several older adults had access to social networks and socially invested resources, thereby having opportunities for civic engagement and building age-friendly neighborhoods. However, social, cultural, linguistic, and structural barriers were more evident among certain diverse ethnic populations. Marginalized low-income minorities and immigrants, such as Hispanic participants, felt the lack of social cohesion among the larger society limited their ability to give back, thus decreasing their civic engagement activities. In contrast, Caucasian and African-American older adults were able to contribute to the political process through more civic participation activities. We provide implications for examining the role of social capital and social engagement to bolster civic engagement among older adults in building age-friendly communities.

The role and attitude of senior leaders in promoting group-based community physical activity: a qualitative study

“…This makes civic participation and engagement an area of increasing importance, with many countries reexamining their approaches to dealing with aging [19,20]. While civic engagement is widely accepted and discussed as part of a conceptual framework for increasing social capital, little research has attempted to identify the phenomena related to the roles of social capital, social cohesion, and social engagement [21]. As such, this study focused on group-based communitywide exercise programs in order to examine the pivotal roles that senior group leaders played in health promotion and whether their efforts enhanced social participation among the older people.…”

Access to Employment, Volunteer Activities, and Community Events and Perceptions of Age-Friendliness: The Role of Social Connectedness

“…However, a nonsignificant result does not mean that access to volunteer resources was a less important factor in older adults’ sense of attachment to, and the perceived age-friendliness of, their communities. This result may be explained through a dynamic identified in previous studies (e.g., Menec et al, 2011; Parekh et al, 2018), suggesting that taking older adult volunteers for granted, making assumptions about their interests and abilities, may discourage participation in community activities and psychological attachment to community. Thus, we should consider appropriate ways to respect their commitments and contributions (Emlet & Moceri, 2012).…”

“…The WHO launched the Age-Friendly Cities Project in an effort to create age-friendly environments that support people to age in places of their choice (Lui et al, 2009). The WHO established international guidelines based on the active aging framework: optimizing opportunities for health, participation, and security to enhance people’s quality of life as they age (Parekh et al, 2018; WHO, 2007). The WHO’s (2007) guidelines address eight domains of age-friendliness: outdoor spaces and buildings, transportation, housing, respect and social inclusion, social participation, civic participation and employment, communication and information, and community support and health.…”

Implementation of age-friendly initiatives in smart cities: probing the barriers through a systematic review

“…Issues of civic participation and employment opportunities are major challenges in many cities (Parekh et al , 2018; Emlet and Moceri, 2012). Age-based discrimination practices, ageist attitude, stereotypes and lack of legal measures to protect older employees from discrimination have made several employers perceive older adults as less productive and incapable, thus less able to contribute to the economy (Chui et al , 2019; Sun et al , 2018).…”