Social exclusion, location and transport disadvantage amongst non-driving seniors in a Melbourne municipality, Australia

Over the past decade, researchers have refocused their attention upon the interconnection between locationally disadvantaged communities and poor transport services in order to better understand social exclusion. Limited access to private and public transport has often been identified as a major contributing factor to social isolation and economic poverty that certain groups in the community experience. To date, an insufficient amount of research attention has focused on the elderly or seniors, who are often identified as being subject to social exclusion because of difficulties associated with travelling outside their homes to access services and facilities especially for non-car drivers. Moreover, a disproportionate amount of research undertaken on transport related forms of social exclusion in Australia has understandably looked towards the outskirts of its major urban centres, where services and facilities are sparsely located and generally only accessible by car. This paper provides a different insight by analysing a middle distant municipality where large spatial concentrations of seniors are to be found, some of whom do not have ready access to a car or have difficulty accessing the public bus service. Using a variety of data sources for a municipality in Melbourne, this case study reveals that social exclusion of non-car driving seniors is reinforced by a regional public transport system that cannot adequately service the entire municipality. For now, the incidence of locational and transport related disadvantage is restricted to small pockets of the municipality, but as seniors age and surrender their car driving licences this problem could become more serious. The study concludes by calling for more analyses to be undertaken into transport engendered social exclusion if this problem is to be contained as the post-war baby-boomers generation ages across most of the middle suburbs of Australian cities.     

Investigating the Memorable Experiences of the Senior Travel Market: An Examination of the Reminiscence Bump

The importance of the senior travel market has been well-recognized by tourism marketers and researchers. While academic studies have begun to examine the psychological aspects of senior travelers, more progress must be made to investigate the psychology of memory, particularly with respect to the reminiscence bump, behind the nature of their memorable experiences (MEs). In-depth interviews with 42 respondents revealed five characteristics: identity formation, family milestones, relationship development, nostalgia reenactment, and freedom pursuits. Finally, the practical implications of this study are discussed and several avenues for future research are proposed.     

老年人口日常生活自理能力城乡差异研究——基于CLHLS(2014)数据的实证分析

利用中国老年健康影响因素跟踪调查2014年数据,基于城乡差异的视角,运用二元Logistic回归剖析我国老年人口日常生活自理能力的现状及其影响因素。研究结果表明,我国城乡老人日常生活自理能力差异明显,影响因素也不尽相同,亟待全生命周期健康管理。在对高龄、孤独、视力不佳老人群体的普适性健康干预的基础上,城镇还需要多渠道维护贫困和独居老年群体的健康权益,农村则重在提倡定期体检、戒烟限酒、适度体力劳动的健康行为习惯,并加大对女性、无配偶、患有慢性非传染性疾病以及非独居老人的保障力度。     

Use of the Urban Core Index to analyze residential mobility: the case of seniors in Canadian metropolitan regions

The present research intends to fill gaps identified in the current literature in the classification of the urban environment (i.e. city vs. suburbs), something that is important in urban and transportation planning, especially in the context of seniors. It does so first by proposing an urban/suburban classification that takes into account multiple census variables to provide a richer yet fine-grained and standardized classification of urban and suburban census tracts – the “Urban Core.” The Urban Core is then compared with the more common classification of the “Inner City,” that is based on age of housing. The proposed definition is then applied to examine if recent behavior of seniors has been consistent with the contention that they will increasingly move to the city – something that has been suggested in the media and grey literature. This is done by examining disaggregate data from four Canadian censuses on households moving to the Urban Core or suburbs, by age group. This is done initially graphically, and then logistic regressions are used to analyze how the effect of being a senior on moving to the Urban Core has evolved over the four censuses, while controlling for other socio-demographic variables. As such, using the proposed definition of the Urban Core, analysis suggests that seniors have been increasingly moving away from the Urban Core, behavior that is inconsistent with a hypothesis of a return to the city for seniors in the future.     

The effect of social capital and altruism on seniors' revisit intention to social network sites for tourism-related purposes

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships among social capital, altruism, common bond and identity, and revisit intention using social capital, altruism, and attachment theories. A total of 452 responses were generated from consumers 50 years of age and older (seniors), qualified as having used a social network site (SNS) for tourism-related products and services within the past 12 months. Results show that social capital has significant effects on common bond and identity while social capital has a slightly greater effect on common identity than common bond. Altruism has significant effects on common bond and identity whereas altruism has a greater effect on common bond than common identity. Common bond and identity both have significant effects on revisit intention. Noticeably, revisit intention is highly influenced by common identity. Therefore, this study provides new knowledge and recommendations to SNS administrators addressing why seniors use SNSs for tourism-related purposes.     

Assessment of E-government inclusion policies toward seniors: A framework and case study

Digital exclusion of seniors covers both social and technical drivers that affect the magnitude of this phenomenon. It arises from the fear of technology, reduced manual and mental abilities, socio-economic status, and also the mismatch between the technological environment and the needs of the elderly. The consideration of the needs of seniors are mainly implemented through social policies while the provision of government services is achieved through digitization policies and procedures. Our research is addressing two objectives. The first objective is to identify the main determinants affecting the adoption of e-government and its use by seniors. The second objective is to build a research framework for assessing e-government policy for the digital inclusion of the seniors from both social and technical perspectives. This research framework is then validated based on a case study of Poland. Presented framework proves to be a useful tool to evaluate and depict the areas of improvement for a comprehensive e-government policy toward seniors' inclusion.