The Many Meanings of “Active Ageing”. Confronting Public Discourse with Older People’s Stories

Dyk, Silke van; Lessenich, Stephan; Denninger, Tina; Richter, Anna

doi:10.4000/rsa.932

Cited by 58 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Over and above their descriptions of time use, more than half of the participants (12 women, five men) went on to endorse the quality of their lives as active, full and busy, saying such things as ‘I like to keep busy’ and ‘I am as busy as I have ever been’. The salutation of a busy lifestyle has long been observed about retirees (Ekerdt 1986; Roth et al 2012; Tsuji 2005; van Dyk et al 2013; Yen et al 2012). Again, there is no way to know how busy people are, but in claiming to have an active life, people are aligning themselves with one of the universal goods and positive ideals of later life (Katz 2000).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Freedom to decide how to spend one's time may be seen as a benefit of retirement, but not an unconditional good. There is a risk of losing track of time, of falling into idleness (van Dyk et al 2013). Descriptions of routines and the importance of structure seemed to assure the participants and their listener that, unlike some retirees, they were not passively letting time slip away.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The task of time in retirement

Ekerdt

Koss

2015

Ageing and Society

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Retirees' encounter with time has long interested social scientists, especially the negotiation of such an open-ended status. Pursuing theoretical suggestions that daily activities anchor a narrative of self-identity, this project examined the coherence of retirees' representations of their time use. Information is drawn from interviews with  retirees in the Midwestern United States of America who were invited to discuss their daily lives and activities. The retirees valued time sovereignty and accounted for their time use by describing schedules of activities in some detail. Daily time was not presented as improvised but rather as structured into routines. Recurring behaviours flowed from situations and structures in which people were implicated, such as body care and living with others. Even in replies to a specific question about the preceding day, people slipped into language about what they typically do. Retirees' ready narratives about routines were also accounts of who they are not. Our findings suggest, first, that daily routines are instrumental for retirees in economising thought and behaviour. Second, the assertion of a routine is an assurance that one's life is ordered and proceeds with purpose, thus solving the task of time. Third, routines can be a means to signal conformity with ideals of active ageing.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The task of time in retirement

Ekerdt

Koss

2015

Ageing and Society

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“…They no longer felt bound by others’ impositions on their time, nor by the sense of not having enough time available to do what they wanted. In qualitative studies of the retirement transition, the ability to control one’s own time has been shown to be one of the biggest advantages of retirement (Ekerdt & Koss, 2016; Van Dyk, Lessenich, Denninger, & Richter, 2013; Weiss, 2005). …”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The retirees in Ekerdt and Koss’ study showed that routines served to give one’s life order and purpose, while also being a way of signaling “conformity with the ideals of active ageing” (p. 13). The term “busy talk” was coined by Van Dyk et al (2013) to capture their participants’ desire to demonstrate an adherence to the active aging paradigm. These participants also desired to be dissociated from a passive retirement narrative, which they perceived as existing in society.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The lived experience of well-being in retirement: A phenomenological study

Bauger

Bongaardt

2016

International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well

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This phenomenological study aimed to identify and describe the general meaning structure of the experience of well-being after retirement. We interviewed nine retirees about their lived experiences with well-being and analysed the data with Giorgi’s descriptive phenomenological method. The general meaning structure described well-being in retirement as a phenomenon that interweaves four constituents: (1) an awareness of and gratitude for a healthy and functioning body, (2) a new experience of time presenting possibilities for action, (3) a heightened sense of agency, and (4) being-in-place in relationships. We discuss these findings in relation to relevant literature of successful aging, the perception of time, eudaimonic and hedonic well-being and generativity. Our findings contribute to the field by comprehensibly describing the phenomenon of well-being as it is experienced by retirees, which we conclude to be a valuable contribution for initiatives promoting well-being in retirement.

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“…These changes are fundamentally changing population demographics internationally, resulting in increasingly ageing populations. Thus, it is a key issue to ensure that this increment in life expectancy, due to advances in medicine and health care, is coupled with a good quality of life (van Dyk, Denninger, & Richter, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A multimodal conversational coach for active ageing based on sentient computing and m‐health

2019

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As life expectancy increases, it has become more necessary to find ways to support healthy ageing. A number of active ageing initiatives are being developed nowadays to foster healthy habits in the population. This paper presents our contribution to these initiatives in the form of a multimodal conversational coach that acts as a coach for physical activities. The agent can be developed as an Android app running on smartphones and coupled with cheap widely available sport sensors in order to provide meaningful coaching. It can be employed to prepare exercise sessions, provide feedback during the sessions, and discuss the results after the exercise. It incorporates an affective component that informs dynamic user models to produce adaptive interaction strategies.

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The Many Meanings of “Active Ageing”. Confronting Public Discourse with Older People’s Stories

Cited by 58 publications

References 16 publications

The task of time in retirement

The task of time in retirement

The lived experience of well-being in retirement: A phenomenological study

A multimodal conversational coach for active ageing based on sentient computing and m‐health

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