Objectives: Socioeconomic status impacts emotional health outcomes, but a lifecourse approach is necessary to understand the timing of these effects. The current analyses examined the impact of financial strain in childhood and adulthood on longitudinal changes in three measures of emotional health: depressive symptoms, loneliness, and anxiety.

Method: Data were from 1596 adults from the Swedish Twin Registry, aged 45 to 98 at intake (mean = 72.6) who participated in up to 9 waves over 25 years. Measures of financial strain (FS) included questions about how well finances met family needs. Latent growth curve models (LGCM) were used to estimate the impact of childhood and adult FS on changes in emotional health.

Results: Results indicated that both childhood and adult FS independently influenced trajectories of emotional health in mid to late adulthood. For all 3 emotional health variables, both childhood and adult FS were associated with the LGCM intercept and childhood FS was associated with linear change with age. Interaction effects of childhood and adult FS were found for the LGCM intercept for loneliness, only.

Conclusion: Results corroborate the accumulation of risk models, with effects of both childhood and adult FS on emotional health, and possible social mobility effects for loneliness.

Background: Retirement transition has been shown to associate with changes in physical activity (PA) and self-rated health (SRH), but their interrelationship is less studied. The aim was to investigate changes in accelerometer-measured total PA, moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA), and sedentary time across retirement transition as a predictor of SRH. Methods: Data from the Swedish Retirement Study and the Finnish Retirement and Aging study were harmonized and pooled. Data from 3 waves (about 12 mo apart) were included: 1 preretirement (wave 1) and 2 postretirement follow-ups (wave 2–3). A totally of 245 participants (27% men) were included. Thigh-worn accelerometers were used to collect data for PA variables (wave 1–2), and SRH was obtained from the questionnaire (wave 1–3). Results: Between wave 1 and 2, total PA decreased with 11 (CI, −22 to −1) minutes per day, MVPA was stable (0 [CI, −3 to 3] min), and sedentary time decreased nonsignificantly with 9 (CI, −20 to 1) minutes. SRH changed between all 3 waves (all P < .001). At preretirement, 10 more minutes of MVPA was associated with greater odds of better SRH when adjusting for accelerometer wear-time, cohort, sex, age, and occupational status (odds ratio: 1.11 [95% CI, 1.02–1.22]). This association was no longer statistically significant when additionally adjusting for marital status, body mass index, and smoking. No significant associations were observed between changes in the PA variables during retirement transition and SRH at postretirement follow-ups. Conclusions: This study showed a cross-sectional association between MVPA and greater odds of reporting better SRH before retirement. No longitudinal associations were observed between changes in the PA variables from before to after retirement and later changes in SRH.

Most older Americans with career employment change jobs at least once before retiring from the labor market. Much is known about the prevalence and determinants of these bridge jobs, yet relatively little is known about the implications of such job changes—compared to direct exits from a career job—upon economic disparities in later life. In this article, we use 26 years of longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study to document the various pathways that older Americans take when exiting the labor force, and examine how bridge employment affects nonhousing wealth and total wealth, including the present discounted value of Social Security benefits. We find that gradual retirement in the form of bridge employment neither exacerbates nor mitigates wealth inequalities among Americans who hold career jobs later in life. That said, we do find some evidence that wealth inequalities grow among the subset of older career workers who transition from career employment to bridge employment at older ages. One policy implication of our article is that it provides evidence that might allay concerns about the potential for disparate financial impacts associated with the gradual retirement process. 

Objectives This umbrella review aimed to evaluate whether certain interventions can mitigate the negative health consequences of caregiving, which interventions are more effective than others depending on the circumstances, and how these interventions are experienced by caregivers themselves.

Design An umbrella review of systematic reviews was conducted.

Data sources Quantitative (with or without meta-analyses), qualitative and mixed-methods systematic reviews were included.

Eligibility criteria Reviews were considered eligible if they met the following criteria: included primary studies targeting informal (ie, unpaid) caregivers of older people or persons presenting with ageing-related diseases; focused on support interventions and assessed their effectiveness (quantitative reviews) or their implementation and/or lived experience of the target population (qualitative reviews); included physical or mental health-related outcomes of informal caregivers.

Data extraction and synthesis A total of 47 reviews were included, covering 619 distinct primary studies. Each potentially eligible review underwent critical appraisal and citation overlap assessment. Data were extracted independently by two reviewers and cross-checked. Quantitative review results were synthesised narratively and presented in tabular format, while qualitative findings were compiled using the mega-aggregation framework synthesis method.

Results The evidence regarding the effectiveness of interventions on physical and mental health outcomes was inconclusive. Quantitative reviews were highly discordant, whereas qualitative reviews only reported practical, emotional and relational benefits. Multicomponent and person-centred interventions seemed to yield highest effectiveness and acceptability. Heterogeneity among caregivers, care receivers and care contexts was often overlooked. Important issues related to the low quality of evidence and futile overproduction of similar reviews were identified.

Conclusions Lack of robust evidence calls for better intervention research and evaluation practices. It may be warranted to avoid one-size-fits-all approaches to intervention design. Primary care and other existing resources should be leveraged to support interventions, possibly with increasing contributions from the non-profit sector.

Umbrella reviews (reviews of systematic reviews) are increasingly used to synthesize findings from systematic reviews. One important challenge when pooling data from several systematic reviews is publication overlap, that is, the same primary publications being included in multiple reviews. Pieper et al. have proposed using the corrected covered area (CCA) index to quantify the degree of overlap between systematic reviews to be pooled in an umbrella review. Recently, this methodology has been integrated in Excel- or R-based tools for easier use. In this short letter, we highlight an important consideration for using the CCA methodology for pairwise overlap assessment, especially when reviews include varying numbers of primary publications, and we urge researchers to fine-tune this method and exercise caution when review exclusion decisions are based on its output.

Increasing numbers of older workers continue to work after being eligible to claim a state pension, yet little is known about the quality of these jobs. We examine how psychosocial and physical job quality as well as job satisfaction vary over the late career in three contrasting national settings: Sweden, Japan and the United States. Analyses using random effects modelling drew on data from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (n = 13,936–15,520), Japanese Study of Ageing and Retirement (n = 3704) and the Health and Retirement Study (n = 6239 and 8002). Age was modelled with spline functions in which two knots were placed at ages indicating eligibility for pensions claiming or mandatory retirement. In each country, post-pensionable-age jobs were generally less stressful, freer and more satisfying than jobs held by younger workers, results that held irrespective of gender or education level.

Policy responses to population ageing have focused on lengthening working lives, overlooking inequalities in older adults’ participation in unpaid activities. This paper examines participation in paid and unpaid activities between the ages of 55 and 70 to answer two questions: how do people navigate pathways of paid work, informal care, volunteering, civic participation and housework in mid to later life?; and how do these pathways relate to gender, socio-economic and health inequalities? Two-staged latent class analysis was used to identify activity pathways using data from the British Household Panel Survey (1996–2008). Multinomial logistic models assessed associations between latent pathways and socio-demographic and health characteristics. Three pathways were observed: full-time work to low activity (49%), part-time and in-home work (34%) and multiple activities (16%). Aside from retirement from full-time work, the pathways of participation in paid and unpaid activities were characterised by continuity; substitution between different forms of paid and unpaid work was not observed. Participation in multiple paid and unpaid activities was more common for respondents in better health and of higher socio-economic status. Since the promotion of paid work and volunteering in later life may mainly benefit individuals in advantaged circumstances, policies should avoid taking a blanket approach to encouraging participation in multiple activities, a key component of active ageing.

Providing unpaid informal care to someone who is ill or disabled is a common experience in later life. While a supportive and potentially rewarding role, informal care can become a time and emotionally demanding activity, which may hinder older adults’ quality of life. In a context of rising demand for informal carers, we investigated how caregiving states and transitions are linked to overall levels and changes in quality of life, and how the relationship varies according to care intensity and burden. We used fixed effects and change analyses to examine six-wave panel data (2008–2018) from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH, n = 5076; ages 50–74). The CASP-19 scale is used to assess both positive and negative aspects of older adults’ quality of life. Caregiving was related with lower levels of quality of life in a graded manner, with those providing more weekly hours and reporting greater burden experiencing larger declines. Two-year transitions corresponding to starting, ceasing and continuing care provision were associated with lower levels of quality of life, compared to continuously not caregiving. Starting and ceasing caregiving were associated with negative and positive changes in quality of life score, respectively, suggesting that cessation of care leads to improvements despite persistent lower overall levels of quality of life. Measures to reduce care burden or time spent providing informal care are likely to improve the quality of life of older people.

This paper uses data from the biennial Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health to examine changes in job quality among older workers, controlling for work intensity and employment characteristics. Job quality outcomes included job satisfaction and physical (dangerous, strenuous or unpleasant work) and psychosocial (job strain, effort-reward imbalance, work time control) working conditions. First difference estimation was used to analyze within-individual changes in job quality, as well as changes in hours, employment characteristics (shifting to a non-permanent contract, the private sector and self-employment) and health. Individuals who worked beyond pensionable age experienced statistically significant improvements in job quality, with larger improvements among those who reduced working hours and shifted from permanent to non-permanent contracts, from the public into the private sector, and from wage-and-salary to self-employment. We conclude that work beyond pensionable age is a distinctive period characterized by employment that becomes more flexible and rewarding and less stressful.

Large numbers of people remain in paid work after pensionable age, often in bridge jobs or with reduced working hours. Remarkably, knowledge about the quality of these jobs relative to those taken prior to pension eligibility is very limited. In this paper, we examined changes in job quality among workers in their sixties in the context of contemporaneous changes in work intensity and employment characteristics. This study is based on data from the biennial Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH, 2006–2018, n = 1890–3013). Job quality outcomes were physical (dangerous, strenuous or unpleasant work) and psychosocial (job strain, effort-reward imbalance, work time control) working conditions and job satisfaction. First difference estimation was used to observe within-individual wave-to-wave changes in job quality over ages 61/62–69/70. Changes in working hours, employment characteristics (shifting to a non-permanent contract, the private sector and self-employment) and health were included as covariates. The typical individual who worked beyond pensionable age experienced statistically significant improvements in job quality. Improvements in psychosocial working conditions and job satisfaction were larger for those who reduced working hours and shifted from permanent to non-permanent contracts, from the public into the private sector and from wage-and-salary to self-employment. Work beyond pensionable age is a distinctive period, characterized by employment that becomes more flexible and rewarding and less stressful. These improvements are a function of older individuals’ preferences and ability to work fewer hours and transition to new lines of work.