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Man has been seeking an ideal existence for a very long time. In this existence, justice, love, and peace are no longer words, but actual experiences. How ever, with the American preemptive invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq and the subsequent prisoner abuse, such an existence seems to be farther and farther away from reality. The purpose of this work is to stop this dangerous trend by promoting justice, love, and peace through a change of the paradigm that is inconsistent with justice, love, and peace. The strong paradigm that created the strong nation like the U.S. and the strong man like George W. Bush have been the culprit, rather than the contributor, of the above three universal ideals. Thus, rather than justice, love, and peace, the strong paradigm resulted in in justice, hatred, and violence. In order to remove these three and related evils, what the world needs in the beginning of the third millenium is the weak paradigm. Through the acceptance of the latter paradigm, the golden mean or middle paradigm can be formulated, which is a synergy of the weak and the strong paradigm. In order to understand properly the meaning of these paradigms, however, some digression appears necessary.

This study explores the social, biological, and genetic determinants of depression in later life. It adds complexity to the idea that later life depression is a natural outgrowth of vascular impairment, antagonistic pleiotropy, or compromised neuroanatomical structures, arguing instead for the importance of education as a fundamental cause.

The study uses the NAS-NRC Twin Registry of World War II Veterans. The use of twins permits the exploration of gene-environment interplay. A recent survey instrument associated with the registry contains numerous indicators of health, including a measure of depression.

The results show that education has a strong negative relationship with depression among those in their 70s and early 80s. Although this relationship is partly explained by lower rates of cardiovascular disease and diabetes among the well-educated, the relationship between education and many common physical illnesses is quite small. Most people of this age experience at least one chronic illness. The relationship between education and depression is explained, instead, by how education reduces impairments in activities of daily living. These impairments are not an inevitable outgrowth of declining health. The well-educated are better able to moderate the impact of poor health on daily functioning. Moreover, the well-educated are able to avoid the otherwise strong genetic risks for depression in later life. Gene × environment models show a high heritability for later life depression on average, but also reveal that this heritability declines with increasing education. Among those with a four-year college degree, the heritability of depression is very small.

These patterns are interpreted in light of compensatory gene × environment interactions, which emphasize the importance of especially enriched environments for overcoming genetic risk.

This chapter focuses on the heterogeneous pathways (including marital and cohabiting union and parenting histories) through which people navigate their family life courses from adolescence through mid-life, and their implications for union dissolution in middle and later life. The analyses draw on data (retrospective, cross-sectional) from the 2011 and 2017 Canadian General Social Surveys. The study sample includes individuals aged 50 and over (n = 14,547) who were in a union at age 50. Sequence analyses are used to identify the most common family life course trajectories among these individuals from adolescence through midlife (ages 15–50). Logistic regression analyses then address the implications of these trajectories for union dissolution in middle and later life (ages 50+). The results reveal four main family trajectories that characterize the earlier years of the adult life course: married with children, cohabiting with children, single or cohabiting without children, and married without children. These family trajectories, together with their level of complexity, play an important role in relation to both marital and cohabiting union dissolution outcomes in later life.

There is a great deal of research examining the factors that lead people to start protesting in their youth, but little work has been done on first-time protesters later in life. In this research we examine these “late bloomers,” those who protest for the first time later in life, to see if and how they differ from those who protest at different periods in life. We use data from the Youth-Parent Socialization Survey, which is a panel study of people in four waves from 1965 to 1997. We find, of the people who protested later in life, half had never protested previously. Additionally, there are significant differences between people who never protested, people who only protested early in life, people who protested repeatedly throughout life, and those who protested for the first time later in life. The latter group is more likely to attend church more, never have been married, and have lower incomes than people who protested early in life and then did not protest again. Late Bloomers are also more likely less educated and to be Independents than Democrats compared to the Repeat Protesters. This research adds to contemporary research examining differential protest participation patterns.

With the context of changing global and local populations and, for example, their composition and distribution, this paper offers insight to food shopping in later life with a focus on Nottingham and Nottinghamshire in the East Midlands. The work is relevant and important due to the specific population makeup of this area and the challenges in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a result of population changes/challenges.

The work takes an interdisciplinary view and draws on literature from both social policy and social care and business and marketing. Using this work as a grounding, and insights to primary research from a wider study in this area, the paper offers discussion and comment on:

• the importance of food and food shopping in later life;

• issues of, and concerns for, health, well-being, identity and community maintenance and resilience (as a direct result of the challenge to SDG achievement); and

• the role(s) and responsibility of business from a core business and wider business/corporate responsibility perspective as a reflection of the above and findings of the work.

the importance of food and food shopping in later life;

issues of, and concerns for, health, well-being, identity and community maintenance and resilience (as a direct result of the challenge to SDG achievement); and

the role(s) and responsibility of business from a core business and wider business/corporate responsibility perspective as a reflection of the above and findings of the work.

Using primary research undertaken by the authors, the paper supports findings from existing work from across social policy and care and business and management – related to the practicalities, challenges and the role of and approaches to food shopping in later life. It specifically offers insight to the efforts made by older food shoppers to maintain their independence and support their choices in a context of interdependence (e.g. within a family, community and environment). The importance social aspects of food shopping (as a counter to isolation and loneliness for example) are also identified and how, for example, the actions of business(es) may undermine the efforts (and resilience) of individuals and communities. “Better” understanding of food shoppers by business and other stakeholders is promoted.

A small-scale study was conducted to qualitatively explore the “lived experiences” of persons who remarried between the ages of 55 and 75. Improved life expectancy, high divorce rates, increased odds of being widowed over time, and the need for intimate relationships across the lifespan are some of the factors associated with a recent increase in remarriage rates of older adults. While demographic trends indicate that repartnering in the later years will likely become more common, little is known about remarriage in the “young-old” years.

The study included in-depth, semistructured interviews with 11 newlyweds (seven females, four males) who had remarried between the ages of 55 and 75. Word-for-word transcripts were qualitatively analyzed through a process of open coding and constant comparison to identify salient themes related to the original research question “What is the transition to remarriage experience like for adults aged 55–75?”

Five themes emerged from the analysis of participant interviews: positive orientation toward remarriage, practical/pragmatic view of the union, desire for companionship, recognition of others’ feelings, and willingness to adapt.

The findings were salient to a small group of “young-old,” white, middle-class males and females from the Midwest and are not meant to be generalizable. The results can serve as a basis for further research and understanding of romantic relationships and repartnering across the life course.

This study helps to fill the gap that exists in the current literature related to romantic relationships and remarriage in the “young-old” years of life.

Prenatal exposure to adverse conditions is known to affect health throughout the life span. It has also been shown that health is unevenly distributed at advanced ages. This chapter investigates whether health inequalities at old age may be partially caused by prenatal circumstances. We use a sample of people aged 71–91 from eight European countries and assess how shocks in GDP that occurred while the respondents were still in utero affect four important dimensions of later-life health: cognition, depression, functional limitations, and grip strength. We find that early-life macro-economic circumstances do not affect health at advanced ages, nor do they affect inequalities in health. In additional analyses, we show that the least healthy people may not enter our sample as the probability of dying before reaching age 71 is high, and mortality rates among those who were prenatally exposed to adverse GDP shocks are higher. We conclude that selective mortality may mask effects of early-life circumstances on health and health inequality at old age.

This study aims to illustrate the viability of the life course paradigm (LCP), which is increasingly used by social and behavioral scientists to study a wide variety of phenomena, as a framework for studying the transformational role of service consumption in improving consumer well-being in later life.

The LCP is used to develop a life course model for studying the effects of service consumption on older people’s well-being. Previous research related to the consumption of specific types of services (financial and healthcare) is integrated within the multi-theoretical LCP to suggest relevant model variables and derive a set of propositions for illustrating the effects of service consumption on older adults’ well-being.

The research presented in this study shows how efforts to study the effects of service consumption on older people’s well-being can be improved by using the LCP, helps understand the onset and changes in service consumption patterns and illustrates an innovative way to study the role of services in promoting older consumer welfare.

By applying the principles and theoretical perspectives of the LCP, this study contributes to recent transformative service research efforts to better understand the impact of service consumption on people’s lives and the transformational role of services and service providers in improving consumer and societal welfare.

The purpose of this paper is to outline an approach to understanding later life issues through the conceptual framework of “transitions”.

The paper draws on a wide ranging review of the literature, supported by two workshop sessions involving key stakeholders and experts in the field.

An analysis of efficacy or otherwise of the support available for people undergoing some of the major transitions is undertaken and some of the key issues arising from this are presented.

The study derives its data largely from a review of published literature and therefore lacks the input from older people themselves.

The analysis provides guidance to policy makers and others interested in the later life agenda with well-researched recommendations for change.

There are significant social implications in the recommendations and the opportunity for the experiences in later life to be framed in a transitions paradigm.

This is a very original piece of work as no other review has presented the conceptual framework of transitions alongside a practical analysis of the value of current support arrangements across the major transitions.