I am pleased to report new appointments to the editorial team and plans for expansion of the journal. Last summer Miles Lambert succeeded Jean Wilkinson as the Editorial Assistant, and to the great credit of them both, the transition caused practically no delay in the handling of the submitted papers. Then in November 2006, Mima Cattan of Leeds Metropolitan University was appointed as the journal's first Associate Editor. Mima's academic roots are in medical sociology and anthropology. I find her magnificently thoughtful and constructive, not only about the practicalities and responsibilities of an editor's trade, as with concern for the novice author when they receive an unfavourable decision letter, but also about broad epistemological issues in the production and communication of gerontological understanding. Mima's presence will be creative, stimulating and welcome support. Her appointment is to enable more papers to be published, to which I now turn.

Although the association between falls and fear-of-falling has been established by previous studies, the temporal ordering of the two is uncertain. Moreover, the common and unique risk factors that contribute to falls and to fear-of-falling have not been investigated in either primary health-care settings or Asian societies. The aims of this study were to examine the temporal sequencing of fear-of-falling and a fall, and to identify the risk factors associated with the two. A prospective cohort study with three six-month measurement waves was conducted in primary-care settings in Hong Kong. The sample was derived from the waiting list control group of a randomised clinical trial, and 321 respondents participated in the three waves. They were evaluated with the Minimum Data Set for Home Care. It was found that falls and fear-of-falling at baseline were not independent predictors of respectively developing a fear-of-falling and becoming a faller, but that age was a common independent predictor for falls and the onset of a fear-of-falling. Individuals with a fear-of-falling were at risk of both falling and a fear-of-falling at 12 months. The good news is that no vicious cycle of falls and fear-of-falling was found, and modifiable risk factors, including IADL limitations, environmental hazards, and fear-of-falling were identified, so that effective prevention programmes for falls and for fear-of-falling can be designed.

This paper assesses the impact of disturbing life events over five years on the wellbeing of 340 people aged 80–84 years at baseline, by analysing data from a longitudinal survey in Switzerland. The guiding proposition was that the negative effect of life events is moderated by the event domain, i.e. health, deaths and changes in family setting and relationships, and by cognitive adaptation to one's own health state (adopting a more or less optimistic view). Multi-level regression that controlled for the effect of socio-demographic and health factors was used. Corroborating the first hypothesis, a model that differentiated the event categories, instead of their additive inclusion, gave the best fit. In support of the second hypothesis, it was shown that the positive impact of self-rated health reduced the negative effect of life events on wellbeing for survivors, but not for those who died within five years. This suggests that the former made more optimistic appraisals of their mental and physical health, while the latter adjusted their subjective health rating to their functional abilities. Survivors had better psychological resources for coping with disturbing life events, while the deceased lacked these resources, which buffered the impact of negative events. The psychological meaning of stressful events at the end of life is discussed. By encouraging optimistic self-evaluations of health, and raising awareness of the range of normal functioning of older people, health- and social-care practitioners can promote the maintenance of meaningful lives in old age.

This paper explores the intersections of age and masculinities in small information technology (IT) firms in Canada. The IT workforce, although demographically young, does not entirely comprise younger workers but is dominated by men and is ageing. Despite the infamous ‘nerd’ stereotype of IT workers and its associations with immature age and masculinity, perceptions of age and ageing in the industry have not been considered in the context of masculinities. To what extent are conceptualisations of IT work shaped by notions of age and masculinities? How do perceptions of age and masculinities correspond to occupational trajectories and responsibilities in IT work settings? To address these questions, this paper reports an analysis of qualitative semi-structured interviews with 76 employees of small IT firms in Canada. The findings indicate that the dominant frameworks for describing the nature of IT work are metaphors and analogies with sports, the military, entrepreneurial drive and craftsmanship. This paper focuses on the allusions to sport, war and ‘being driven’, and argues that the discursive ties to these masculine arenas normalise, or make ‘natural’, the affiliation of youthfulness and technical ability. The corresponding intersections between age and masculinity suggest that older workers are marginalised in small IT firms.

In England, processes of regulation and inspection have been established to ensure that older people living in long-term care settings receive quality care. This paper describes how dying and death in care homes for older people is regulated and inspected. A documentary analysis was undertaken of the standard that addresses dying and death in the 2001 Care Homes for Older People: National Minimum Standards. Present in the standard is a ‘good death’ template drawn from constructions of best practice in palliative care. The way in which this national standard is enacted in the inspection process is described using a content analysis of the inspection reports from 226 care homes for older people. These present a narrow focus on dying and death, one that emphasises the older person's wishes and the degree of adherence to policies and procedures concerned with the dying and death event. A regulated death attenuates the ‘good death’ template and reflects both the inspection process and capabilities of the residents of care homes. If the regulation and inspection process is to integrate dying with living, a broader conception and regime of inspection is required. Only then will end-of-life care be provided that meets the diverse needs of older people who live in care homes.

This study of recent pension reforms in Hong Kong and urban China particularly addressed three questions. What are the causes of the pension reforms in these two economies? What are their key features? What difficulties have been faced by the Hong Kong and Beijing governments during their implementation? As well as enhancing our understanding of the pension schemes in these two countries, the paper makes a contribution to the debate on whether government welfare reforms in responses to economic globalisation are converging on one pattern, an ideal mix of pension schemes. This paper shows that both convergent and path-dependent processes explain the forms of the measures introduced by the Hong Kong and Beijing governments. They have responded not only to the challenges brought by economic globalisation but also to the legacy of previous policies. Moreover, the welfare effectiveness of the new schemes has been undermined both by the two governments' non-welfare policies, particularly to promote economic growth, and by the constraints created by the previous welfare measures. The paper also argues that to develop only a non-contributory comprehensive pension scheme is not the solution to the problem of how best to provide old-age income security, but that this welfare goal principle should be more strongly upheld in pensions reforms.

This study examines associations between quality of life and multiple indicators of socio-economic position among people aged 50 or more years in 10 European countries, and analyses whether the relative importance of the socio-economic measures vary by age. The data are from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) in 2004. 15,080 cases were analysed. Quality of life was measured by a short version of the CASP-19 questionnaire, which represents quality of life as comprising four conceptual domains of individual needs that are particularly relevant in later life: control (C), autonomy (A), self-realisation (S) and pleasure (P). The short version has 12 items (three for each domain). Five indicators of socio-economic position were used: income, education, home ownership, net worth, and car ownership. A multiple logistic regression showed that quality of life was associated with socio-economic position, but that the associations varied by country. Relatively small socio-economic differences in quality of life were observed for Switzerland, but comparatively large differences in Germany. Education, income, net worth, and car ownership consistently related to quality of life, but the association of home ownership was less consistent. There was no indication that the socio-economic differences in quality of life diminished after retirement (i.e. from 65+ years). Conventional measures of socio-economic position (education and income), as well as alternative indicators (car ownership and household net worth), usefully identified the differential risks of poor quality of life among older people before and after the conventional retirement age.

Clothes are central to the ways older bodies are experienced, presented and understood within culture, so that dress forms a significant, though neglected, element in the constitution and experience of old age. Drawing on a range of secondary literature, this article traces how clothing intersects with three key debates in social gerontology, concerning the body, identity and agency. It examines the part played by clothing in the expression of social difference, and explores the role of age-ordering in determining the dress choices of older people, and its enforcement through moral discourses that discipline their bodies. Dress is, however, also an arena for the expression of identity and exercise of agency, and the article discusses how far older people are able to use clothing to resist or redefine the dominant meanings of age. Lastly the paper addresses questions of the changing cultural location of older people, and the role of consumer culture in the production of Third Age identities.