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Recent studies report significant increases in retirement ages over the past two to three decades in most countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development-increases that research has attributed mainly to changes in the legislative frameworks for retirement in these countries. Using unique data from the Danish Longitudinal Study of Ageing, this study investigates whether and, if so to what extent, changes to the workforce in terms of gender, education, employment status (employed or self-employed) and health contribute to explaining differences in retirement ages between the cohorts born in 1935 and 1950. The retirement window of these cohorts stretches from the early 1990s to the late 2010s-a period characterized by substantial changes to workforce. On average, retirement ages increased by two years from the 1935 cohort to the 1950 cohort. However, due to changes in the investigated factors having offsetting effects, the net effect of such changes on retirement ages was minor. Thus, while increasing levels of education and better health among older workers contributed to increasing retirement ages, increasing female labour force participation and fewer self-employed workers had the opposite effect. In absolute terms, the total compositional and behavioural influence on retirement ages of changes in terms of employment status (- 0.35 years) was almost as large as the total changes in terms of education (0.44 years). Thus, future studies investigating long-term changes in retirement ages would benefit from including changes in employment status (self-employed or wage earner) as an explanatory factor.

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Visual impairment contributes to poor mental health among older adults by restricting everyday functioning and participation. This study examined whether the negative link between vision impairment and depressive symptomatology was less severe among partnered than among single older adults. We merged data from a survey among people with vision impairment with a reference population from the most recent wave of the Danish Longitudinal Study of Ageing (DLSA) (N = 5831 M age = 74.37, range: 65-97 years, 53.1% female), investigating whether paths from poor vision via three mediators-functional limitations, emotional support and participation in social activities-to depressive symptomatology differ by partnership status. Structural equation modeling suggested that the direct path from vision impairment to depressive symptomatology is more than twice as strong for single than for partnered older adults. Thus being partnered reduces the negative link from vision impairment to depressive symptomatology. However, the path from vision impairment to emotional support is significantly stronger among single than among partnered individuals. Thus negative spillover effects from the visual impairment on the non-impaired partner's mental health may compromise that partner's ability to provide emotional support. Taking into account both partnership status and the mental health of both partners may help professionals more precisely target interventions aimed at reducing the risk of depression in visually impaired older adults.

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Aging populations put pressure on the provision and financing of long-term care (LTC) services in many countries. The projected increase in LTC expenditures may in particular constitute a threat to the future sustainability of public budgets in welfare states, where LTC is financed through taxes. To accommodate the increasing number of 80+ year-olds in society, policy-makers and service administrators need a better understanding of care preferences among future older adults: What types of services do older citizens prefer most, and which factors shape their LTC preferences? A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was administered to a representative sample of the Danish population aged 54-64 from May to July 2019 (n = 1154), investigating which factors shape individuals' preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) for their future LTC. Our results reveal that respondents are willing to make additional out-of-pocket payments to supplement the care provided for free by the municipality. The WTP was highest for services such as receiving help from a regular care team ($129 per month) and an extra shower a week ($116 per month). Moreover, we find heterogeneous care preferences, with three user characteristics associated with higher WTP for services: higher education, high wealth, and a low trust in the publicly financed care system. Our results raise concerns that inequalities between relatively more- and less-resourceful older adults may increase in Scandinavian-type welfare states in the future. Such increasing inequality in service provision may undermine citizens' trust in and support of the publicly financed care system.

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Longevity entails a higher prevalence of chronic impairments that often come with aging, such as age-related vision loss (ARLV). Dependence and increasing vulnerabilities contrast sharply with contemporary reductionist models of positive aging, and gradually worsening eyesight exposes older adults with ARLV to situations where idealized models of late life do not fit them. In analyzing semi-structured interviews conducted in Denmark with 40 older adults, aged 55-70 years, with vision loss, this study examines how people in late midlife and early late life negotiate their vulnerability, dependence, and need for help across different contexts. The findings illustrate how these lived experiences situate people with ARVL outside the idealized late life and how they negotiate their need for help in both their work life and private life. The findings also show how people with age-related vision loss perform a balancing act between the lived vulnerability and the prescribed role of vulnerability arising from social discourses. Some contexts allow people with ARVL to negotiate and re-negotiate their vulnerability, while others, such as work-life contexts, often offer less room for negotiating vulnerability and need for help. The study makes it clear that, given the cultural emphasis on extended work lives, the ways in which work cultures can adapt to age diversity and age-related disabilities must receive more attention.

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The present study assessed and explained trends in volunteer work among older adults in Denmark against the backdrop of stagnating participation rates in, for example, the USA. Data on volunteering were retrieved from the multidisciplinary Danish Longitudinal Study on Ageing and merged with information from administrative registries. Multiple imputation was used to correct for sample selection, and Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition was applied to analyse the development in volunteering from 1997 to 2017 for 6263 respondents aged 67-77. For this age group, volunteerism increased by 12% points, corresponding to an almost 50% increase from 1997 to 2017. Approximately a quarter of this increase was due to compositional changes, i.e. to changes in respondents' characteristics between the 2 years, whereas three-quarters were due to changes in coefficients, i.e. to changes in the associations between the explanatory variables and volunteering over time. Thus, while larger shares of older adults had more resources in terms of higher levels of education and health in 2017 than in 1997, such resources were less important for volunteerism among Danish older adults in 2017. Despite concerns about declining civic-mindedness and empirical evidence on stagnating participation rates in many Anglo-Saxon countries, Denmark has succeeded in drawing an ever-broader range of older adults into volunteerism over the past decades. The extensive welfare state model and changing norms and perceptions of ageing may together have contributed to the large increase in old-age volunteerism in Denmark.

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RATIONALE: Different measures for quantifying the percentage of people with a disability in surveys result in diverging estimates of prevalence and disability-related inequalities. Thus understanding the implications of using different disability measures is of vital policy importance. This study is the first to investigate the within-survey variation in disability prevalence based on two internationally recognized measures: the Washington Group Short Set (WGSS) and the Global Activity Limitation Indicator (GALI). It is also the first to examine the disability-related inequality in voter turnout, based on official validated voter records. METHODS: We use data on 11,308 25-54-year-old respondents from the 2016 wave of the Survey of Health, Impairment and Living Conditions in Denmark (SHILD) to estimate the disability prevalence based on the WGSS and the GALI. Moreover, we investigate health characteristics of individuals with a disability according to the two measures and inequalities in two central social policy success parameters: voter turnout and employment. RESULTS: The WGSS estimates higher disability prevalence (10.6%) than the GALI (5.5%). Only 2.5% of the sample are in both groups, implying that largely, different individuals are defined as having a disability depending on which measure is used. The health profiles of the two groups also differ, as people with a GALI-defined disability are significantly more likely to report a severe mental illness or a major physical health problem. The GALI estimates indicate larger inequalities between people with and without a disability than the WGSS for the probability of being employed, whereas there are no significant differences for voter turnout. CONCLUSION: The choice of disability measure strongly influences within-survey estimates of disability prevalence, the health profile of the defined groups, and inequalities in outcomes. The WGSS underrepresents the number of people suffering from severe mental illness. Estimated inequalities in employment are larger for the GALI than for the WGSS.

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PURPOSE: Assistive technologies in care work are expected to alleviate the challenges related to population aging, namely the pressure on public budgets and a shortage of care professionals. This study examines how various stakeholders view the potentials of assistive technology in an institutionalized care setting in Denmark. METHOD: Using ethnographic field observations, interviews, and document analysis, we explore the residents', the staff's, and the municipality's perspectives on the technologies and analyze whether they live up to the stated expectations. RESULTS: We identify three parallel narratives representing each of the stakeholder's perspectives. The municipality's triple-win narrative emphasizes expected gains in terms of efficiency, improved working conditions, and better quality of care. The staff's ambiguity narrative contains both negative views regarding the motive for using technologies to save resources and positive accounts of how technologies have reduced work-related pain. The residents' limited agency narrative reflects an internalization of the staff's perspectives. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that, despite both the staff and the municipality highlighting the residents' well-being and comfort as important outcomes of assistive technologies, the residents' wishes have limited influence on whether and, if so, how assistive technologies are used.IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATIONDifferent stakeholders' views on assistive technology vary and are closely connected to their respective institutional interests and roles. These perspectives are important for a successful implementation of assistive technologies.Understanding the positions of staff and older care recipients, and differentiating between their respective perspectives can help both scholars and product developers understand the potentials and risks of AT in a more nuanced way.

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