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This is

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Hello, good morning. Hi.

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None of you is John Marie, no. We're just talking for 1 one of our Suppose in-person presenters, but I don't think they've showed up.

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Anyway, so my name is Weir Pitimonin and I'm from the University of Helsinki in Finland.

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Where nothing ever starts late. It's actually I'm still finding it difficult to adjust to that.

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Culturally having lived in Ireland for a long time which is Officially one of the Mediterranean countries really would have comes to timekeeping but we're gonna try to kick off on time today in the session for re-imagining activating for new times.

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And on behalf of everyone gathered I pay respect to the spirit of the country here in Naram where we're meeting I acknowledge the past and present coordination, Veronica, a viv room as the sovereign people here.

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The cultural knowledge holders who maintain and promote the Nauru Aboriginal law, customs and custodianship responsibilities for country and the people that country continues to sustain generation after generation into the future for all of us.

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I recognize the important

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No, it's gone into the loop and Yeah, the important contribution that First Nations thinkers have made the sociology, including challenges, are dominant ways of thinking.

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We thank all First Nation delegates in the room today for their contributions to knowledge in the discipline. Hi, you must be January.

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Okay, lovely. Excellent. So in that case we actually have hopefully everybody who is. I know I know I know it's no no no reflection on you at all.

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I think it's just the dynamics of the conference. I think a lot of RC 11 people went out for dinner last night.

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Plus, I'm sure there are others. Were elsewhere in the conference plus. I think chat like might be kicking in for real the second or third morning of being here.

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You come from far away. So we'll just. Kick off. And we can either go strictly in the order in which The presentations are listed in the program.

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Or we can let the online presenters go first if there's any issues at their end. With regard to time zone or anything else but They haven't let you know.

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No. Okay, so in that case, will proceed as the program is sets out. And so first off we have Segita Dobletta from the Universal Data of Theo and Spain and Robert Tjosa, also from Ovied of Spain on the topic of why people work past retirement age.

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Good morning.

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Hi, good morning. Yeah, so let me share my screen.

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Okay. Okay.

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Hope you can see it now.

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Yes.

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Okay, so good morning everyone. My name is Tegita. I am from University of Florida in northern Spain.

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And today, We, I, well. This paper is co-operated with my colleague, the same university for the other and today we are presenting a paper where we basically ask question why people work best retirement age.

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So we apart from that evidence that it is frequently argued as well the states are at risk due to the present of future fiscal and sustainability of the health care and pension systems.

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Basically driven by the aging populations. And in light of the extending working lives by raising the statutory retirement age to encouraging people to work at beyond that age, is often advocate as a possible solution.

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So we aim in this presentation in this paper. We aim to better understand the experiences and motivations of individuals who extend the working lives beyond the tutor retirement age and the corresponding countries.

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As well as the meetings they attached to work. And to achieve this, we employ quality to better than synthesis, which basically covers a variety of methods that enable us to systematically integrate individual qualitative research reports.

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And specifically we did method nography which is considered to be one of the most developed methods. And it is interpretive where basically analysis consist of a constant and systematic comparison of qualitative studies, which, identified for several or several literature steps, strategies such as database stash, backwards and forward citation tracking or session key shortener.

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And this said led us to the inclusion of 13 publications which you can see in this table and out of 13 13 studies, the earliest report was published in 2,000, which fields were conducted more or less in the late nineties, which consists with the discourse ship from early exit.

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Towards the extended working lives. And together the publications report on the work experiences of 200 party free individuals of whom over 140 were men.

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And when the participants were primarily 65 and older with the exception of free studies but they could have retired, according to the policies in the corresponding countries in this world beyond retirement age.

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And while while a large part of the reports focused on a variety of jobs, several single occupations studies in, for example, academics or health care profession.

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So in the analysis of of the studies we draw on Emerbyer and Niche's agency theory and basically we locate free dimensions or orientations of agency iteration orientation towards the habitual path projectivity the imagination of alternative futures and practical evaluation and assessment of present demands and contingencies.

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And individuals can, simultaneously orient themselves towards the past the future or the present. However, one of these dimensions is usually more prominent.

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So in what remains I will briefly discuss these dimensions and how they coincide with particular structure context in which human action basically arises.

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So best. First, this drive for life continuity. It's stability and order. And this trifle I could immediately arises in nearly all of the narratives, although to varying degrees.

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And despite aging, work through habits, routines and repetition becomes a source of such continuity.

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For some participants, work, represents a need for economic continuity, which is linked to basically public retirement policies.

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Generally bigger state pensions or due to poorly pay jobs in the past or non-standard work histories which seem to disproportionately affect women and self-employed or also linked to have a live characteristics such as paying off a mortgage or supporting family member.

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A work work routines are also perceived as a way of maintaining mental well-being and physical health as well as social interactions and physical health as well as social interactions and work entities and physical health as well as social interactions and work identities.

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And while a large portion of the studies featured some or all of the social interactions and work identities.

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And while a large portion of the studies featured some or all of these traumatizations of work identities.

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And while a large portion of the studies featured some or all of these traumatizations of social experience, the iterational dimension of agencies strongly predominated and was nearly exclusive in the Korean study of work or working in these accounts represents a moral disposition which is deeply inculcated for the socialization processes and hence.

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remains and questioned, at least mainly. The second dimension of agencies is projectivity and this dimension of agency involves the imaginaries of possible future scenarios.

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So in despite the feasibility, these projections of the future influence our actions in the present as they may direct us to certain decisions such as continuing to work or retiring.

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And one direction of these projections involves fears and anxieties about the alternative future. Here participants feared that retirement which is alternative to working would would be detrimental to they have, deteriorate they cognitive functioning increase fragility and ultimately result in their basically stories about friends and friends of friends who became ill or died upon

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retirement demonstrated they are women and like biological deaths, social death was present in the stars too and this anxiety seemed to be based on the imaginary of retirement as passivity and non-activity or unproductive leisure that is the entities of work and there were A recurrent perceptions of retirement as gardening, sitting

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on so far, playing golf or going on cruises. So that was the first direction of future imaginaries.

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The second group of projections could be considered more intentional and positive, more aspirational. He has some participants in particular, academics and healthcare professionals aspire to leave a legacy for mentoring younger colleagues or making a long-term difference and they feel.

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So in summary in these 2 directions of future projections work is not so much a moral disposition or a social value in itself but the best possible project.

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A possibility to escape fragility, boredom, and to be basically remembered in the future. And And finally, the last dimension of agency is practical evaluation here rather than relatively automatic routines, individuals contextualized and evaluated the current work situation.

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So basically how and what's conditions it benefited them and what condition they could contribute or learn and what or under what conditions or when and what conditions they basically would consider retirement.

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Here we're offered work as the opportunity to contribute or they saw it as the mechanism for learning and stuff development.

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However, all of this was not taken for granted, but, but a fragile and condition process, rendition by the work and personal contacts that it was contextualized and critically evaluated in terms of where they could still contribute or learn.

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And here the adverb still and the condition as long as I'm able as long as I make sense as long as I can handle it.

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Came up frequently and some even where even were more explicit and placed very clear conditions of when they would consider retirement.

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And this practical evaluation also extended to economic benefits, benefits rather than necessity as in the first dimension of agency and to the assessment of being able to transform working conditions.

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That is the possibility of adjusting to being able to transform working condition. That is the possibility of adjusting working condition.

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That is the possibility of adjusting the tasks and conditions. That is the possibility of adjusting the tasks and conditions to the interest and conditions to the interest and needs.

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For example, reducing working hours or flexible work in times and conditions to the interest and needs, for example, reducing working hours or flexible work in terms of place and time.

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However, the structural contacts in this in this in which this type of agency can emerge appear to be a critical issue, basically based on empirical data and Lasser and Carlson's period of meaningful work, we argued that this dimension of agency is embedded in work relationships that promote autonomy, recognition and dignity.

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And indeed, the dimension of agency was dominant with other dimensions being very weak in the 2 studies with academics that is a profession that tends to enjoy high levels of meaningfulness at work or please this could be said about all the generations of academics.

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And so in this quality that's qualitative synthesis, we. We disaggregated these 3 dimensions for agency and we argue that all 3 dimensions are present in a large part of the discourses.

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However, one another is usually more salient and it is conditioned by one's personal situations, health, social circles, that tutorial pension systems and above all, work relationships resulting in stronger or bigger experiences.

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And it is more it is also more amenable to public policies through for example the promotion of flexible or the economic benefits of working longer or better opportunities to eject staff and learning to work as interest in later life.

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Yet it is highly contingent and work relationship because discretion basically at work access to learning and opportunities to transform work, work design require workplace conditions that promote autonomy recognition and dignity and these types of work relations are unevenly distributed with some workers lacking access to meaningful work.

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And particular work is in less skill jobs or non-standard employment such as platform work. Which, who's basically whose voices actually are relatively absent in this type of.

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. Nevertheless you to open harsh and working condition. The experiences are likely to differ from more privileged workers such as position academics or other professionals who seem to currently dominate the entire color as such in this matter.

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And well, That's all I have for today. Thank you.

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Hi, thank you. Thank you so much for joining us at what is not very similar to our in Spain.

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I think it's one a. M. There. And so we appreciate your contribution.

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All the more and that was all very interesting. Do we have any questions from the audience?

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Maybe while while everybody's reflecting on that. Can I just ask you about where you actually finished off?

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And I did pick up earlier from the table that lists the studies you included. That I think they were all at least the clear majority of them were indeed about managers and and professionals.

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Professional.

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And you just. Reflect a bit more on that because while it stands to reason that that's maybe where most of the studies would have.

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Selected to together their empirical data. What kind of limits that sets and what kind of future research suggestions might be arising from from your synthesis.

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So yes, a large part of identified qualitative studies in this, in this field in this matter, let's say of workers working beyond retirement age, with professionals, managers.

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There were a couple of studies where there was a mix of workers and there was probably just one study that Korean study where actually workers were and less killed, occupation, let's say.

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And this is this is that relatively relative absence of voices from from let's say lower occupational ladder.

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Actually this is one of the future directions for future research we identified because we argued that basically they structure in context is very different from more privilege.

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Let's say, for patients in terms of great economic need in terms of working conditions and meaningfulness at work.

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So the experience of working beyond retirement age should be very different. It should it might be much Less gigantic, much, less choice and much more basically economic necessity, but this would make very interesting to see how that economic necessity is embedded in the experience and how they, how they, so basically how they explain or motivate

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themselves, let's say, to keep working. For example, in that Korean study, there was really huge identification with work, even though the works were very let's say elementary profession but very huge identification of work which helped I think enabled them to keep working because work conditions seemed very harsh like not having what to eat.

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lunch, working in very unhealthy work environments, etc. Etc. So yes, we are identified as one of the areas where research is lacking.

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And I think Metethinography or qualitative synthesis as method is one of those those those matters which enable us to identify or search gaps.

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Okay, very good. That's very interesting. It is it is fascinating how different topics kind of seem to.

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Attract research researchers think that they should be studying particular topics and maybe often it's quick. Easy as well, relatively easy to study certain topics with certain participant groups.

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Yeah, yeah, definitely.

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I was in a session about I was yesterday in the session about risk where the point was made that virtually all of the research and risk is made with.

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Marginalised or disadvantaged populations which again kind of makes sense but at the same time it means that we're not.

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Paying attention to the whole range of factors that might be impacting on people's choices and decisions. Yeah, in the.

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Yeah.

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Absolutely. I think I think it's just much easier to access those groups of workers as healthcare professionals.

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Or academics, which is probably the most accessible context to us. So.

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Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. We have one question here from the audience.

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Do we bring the microphone to them or do they come up?

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Just just a little while. It's it's late where you are and it's relatively early where we are.

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Yeah.

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Getting moving here. Hello. Thank you for your paper Segita and thank you for getting up at one am.

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I just thought just in the light of the comment that was made You might be interested to know. I actually had the opportunity back in the 19 eighties when I was doing my masters to look at ageing and social stratification.

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And I was able to get a group of people who are working class people who retire middle class and then upper class.

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I used a barbarian approach and it was very interesting the differences that showed up. Upper class people never really retired.

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They had incredible status throughout their lives and once they stopped perhaps they might have retired from a working position or asked to continue on with all the various titles on boards, etc, etc.

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And also with the level of wealth that enjoy throughout the years that have been to look after themselves well and plan well for their retirement.

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So they often went into retirement in very good health, but it wasn't really retirement. And then in the middle class group people had much more of a planned retirement but again they had things like secure housing and they'd enjoyed good health, they've had hobbies and whatnot that had throughout the working lives.

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And it meant that they again were retiring and relatively secure. So it was a planned retirement and work had been meaningful for them throughout their working lives.

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They've done interesting work for them throughout their working lives. They've been meaningful for them throughout their working lives.

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They've done their working lives. They've done interesting work. They're more likely to be well qualified and so on.

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Working class, they've done interesting work, they're more likely to be well qualified and so on. Working class people were exhausted.

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They'd done jobs that didn't necessarily have meaning inherently given them income but they invariably were retired on pensions.

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They didn't have superannuation. This was an area in an era before we had compulsory superannuation in Australia.

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And it meant they retired in poor health without secure housing. They didn't have hobbies to look forward to.

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I mean, this is generalizing of course that they could enjoy and life was much less secure. And, so the really stark differences that came out between 3 groups.

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It was just interesting. I mean, that was data from the 19 eighties and I suspect it's much more complex now but certainly class status and power had a huge influence on the impact and quality of retirement that people went on to enjoy or not.

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Do you want to respond very briefly?

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Yes, yes, absolutely. I totally agree with that. And actually I just recently read one study of Fiona Straddle who who who found that those could retire late.

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Those people who are on the one hand. on the upper occupation, on the upper position of occupational ladder in times that they, and they have very strong identification with work.

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And then those who cannot afford it to retire is to say who basically don't have access to good pensions and they end up retiring with very poor health.

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And and lack of stuff. So yeah, absolutely agree with that. It's more probably more complex, but many of these things you can see in this met technology as well.

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Thank you.

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Thank you, Sir Giza. And if you're able to stay with us, maybe you will come back at the very end if we have time for questions.

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But don't, maybe we'll come back at the very end if we have time for questions.

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But don't, don't feel privileged.

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No, I would love to stay, but I have a free month's old baby who is sleeping right now.

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But things might happen.

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Thank you.

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Oh All them all, thank you too. Okay, so we'll press on and next we have Nathan Muja from the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

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On the topic of barriers and facilitators to Singaporean minority older adults participation in active aging centers.

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Can you tell Sikita she has to stop sharing? Toigera please stop sharing your screen

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Okay, yeah, yeah, thank you.

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We'll get it sorted.

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I actually I actually stopped immediately after after the presentation so let me try maybe something happened but I stopped it.

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Sorry.

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Wait a second, do this? Voters, okay.

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Okay.

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Hi everyone. Just introduce myself again. My name is Nathan and I'm an undergraduate at the NTU.

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My name is Nathan and I'm an undergraduate at the NTU in Singapore.

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Perhaps be different to the guitars, mind it's looking more a bit about the access to active aging and activating services particularly in Singapore.

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So I'll first provide some background for this study. Like many developed countries, Singapore is one of the fastest ageing countries in the world.

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And we asked the meeting about one in 4 of our population to be age 65 in a bus.

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By 2,030. It is in response Singapore has invested very heavily in these drop in social and recreational centers known as active aging centers or AACs which provide activities like exercise programs and health talks for older adults in the community.

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And these centers not only provide spaces for oldesting opponents who develop fertile social networks, but also provide these opportunities for important health and cognitive and physical health and engagements.

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So currently as you can see there we have about 160 ACs across our small island with plans to increase this number to 220 by 2,025.

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So of course Singapore's senior center model is not unique to Singapore. Countries like the US, Canada and where we are in Australia also used similar senior centers to help order adults each actively.

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So in particular, to increase the engagement rates of migrant and minority-order adults, these countries have all used immigrant and ethnic specific senior centers to provide more culturally tailored services in the sense of home away from home to offer these services that specifically appear with the cultural and linguistic needs of these communities.

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Even though in Singapore we also have a multicultural South Nation. Here we have a picture.

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We have around 75% majority Chinese. 1314% milli and 9% Indian population. Singapore distinctly lacks anything senior centers that target any specific ethnic and immigrant community.

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So much from our multicultural ethos. Of our senior centres from the ground up are built to appear to older adults of all recess and religions.

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Of course in reality scholars have found numerous persistent obstacles to the pastration of non-chinese older adults like a lack of languages delivered in minority programs or like of food that meet religious dietary restrictions.

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So these observations are particularly concerning. Given that older minority Singaporeans have been found to be a great risk of things like depression, vascular dementia and functional disabilities.

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So there's this real concern that senior center services are not being accessed by those who potentially benefit greatly from them.

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Despite these new plans to expand the senior center model across the nation.

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Despite growing local and global interest in barriers to minority participation across the world, very few studies have examined the perspectives of senior center staff who I think are integral to the planning and execution of programs on the ground.

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And so here I suggest that start views are particularly important for at least 2 reasons. But this stuff tells a lot about the resource barriers that they face on the ground when trying to reach minority audiences.

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And secondly, other scholars have found that staff themselves can contribute to in a button exclusion in their programming decisions or or reach decisions and how they might inadvertently other these minorities from the outreach.

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And so in life, this research gap, I was interested to understand how senior center staff perceived and executed culturally inclusive programs that are multi-ethnic populations and neighborhoods.

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So I conduct semi-structured interviews with 13 Chinese and 6 non-Chinese-the-care staff over January last year to April this year.

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And this detail was complemented by my own observations in 2 AACs over a period of around 4 months each.

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So here's worth noting that I unfortunately do have to put the ethnicities of my staff in terms of Chinese and non-chinese to minimize the risk of re-identification because we do have a very small sector in Singapore.

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So this is what a typical A/C setup looks like. This is a typical public housing flat in Singapore and our EACs are often just nested right below the void Dex in many of these public housing estates.

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So then the first center are primarily involved in home visits as you can see at the top where I observe stuff and how they interact their clients in their befriending sessions.

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In the second centre, I apparently observed how staff engaged in such activities like health screenings and exercise programs.

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So my partner's observations were conducted roughly once a week with each session. Lasting roughly 3 h.

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So very quickly, let me just go through a summary of my finding so far. I found 3 common themes in the strategies and challenges that stuff a faith in trying to ensure and manage ethnic inclusivity in their programs.

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And some of the crucial rules of minority staff in ensuring a welcoming senior center environment. Using this theory of interpretive frames.

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I also found 2 divergent beams in how a staff framed a neat sense of this phenomenal minority absence in their centers.

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Now go through each steam very briefly in detail. And the first theme I found the common way that staff innovated and strategized to accommodate diversity.

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So given the white heterogeneity in language and cultural preferences among the older adults, staff thought it wasn't always feasible to cater programs for each cultural group.

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So rather to quote B you. Staff often found that it was more important to develop this form of habitus or this set of soft skills and dispositions.

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To them play around with everyday encounters of diversity. So this is often reflected in tools like humor, speaking broken languages, or just laughing about differences to I quote, acknowledge that kind of presence of the minority older adults.

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So staff also tried to leverage when they are minority clients expertise, getting them to take lead to share more about traditional India, normally Muslim food and other festivities.

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And critically these efforts have to facilitate interactions between the Chinese and non-chain older adults, which are typically difficult due to the presence of linguistic barriers.

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Secondly, staff know that the presence of various challenges in promoting inclusion. So even though staff frequently collaborate with government agencies to host exercise programs and health talks, Staff often found it difficult to request vendors who were fluent in languages other than English and Mandarin.

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So for example, here I have a center manager who told me about irony that our local health promotion bought at this program with the Malaya title but who only had English and Chinese vendors at this program with the Malaya title but who only had English and Chinese vendors at the time.

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For more for centres with fewer minority clients. It was much harder for them to justify being able to have this much harder for them to justify being able to have these programs in Malay or in Tamil.

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And so, being able to have these programs in Malaya and Tamil. And so here we see a soft tension in Malaya and Tamil.

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And so here we see a sort of tension between efficiency and equity. So because of this, many staff know that minority seniors sometimes felt disengaged because the programs should not help in their preferred languages.

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And also because of this, many minority seniors in their environments had this impression that their centers were cater relatively exclusively for the majority group.

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Of course, even for centers that have greater ethnic diversity among their clientele. Staff also noted that managing their diverse needs and preferences came with one sets of challenges and conflicts.

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So some clients felt like they had to compromise, accommodate to the needs of others. And this one participant who told me about her dissatisfaction that the Mi clients in her center occupied the most central table in their center.

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Doing a chic event. And so we started to repeatedly read, communicate this importance of respect even if it didn't mean causing some level of unhappiness among their clients.

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So thirdly, most Chinese and non- Chinese staff recognize the important role of minority staff in helping their clients feel more welcome.

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Because of similarities in language, minority clients often opened up more easily to start with the same race and are more transparent about their personal needs or grievances.

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So minority staff had access this bridge between the minority clients and their colleagues, helping them communicate the importance of understanding these needs and preferences.

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Also because of their own experiences and positionalities. Minority staff are often more attuned to the ways in which their centers might have potentially overlooked or neglected the needs of the minority clients.

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So to cook body again, minority staff effectively utilize both their cultural capital and their professional capital to ensure that the needs of their clients were well met.

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That's it, however. Almost half of the centers in this study didn't have any minority staff at all, which often led to communication barriers between staff and their clients.

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And so next I would just very quickly discuss the divergent frame sets. Senior Center staff used to understand this concept of minority absence in their centers.

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So even though most staff and most centers in this study acknowledge and recognize that their centers only had a token presence or one or 2 clients of minority ethnicity.

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Not everybody saw this as a problem. So some rationalize absence of minority clients using cultural frames. Emphasizing the rules of larger family sizes and religious priorities and explaining that minority odor doubt simply preferred engagement outside of these mainstream settings.

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So these staff also believe that minority order doubt set kind of cultural predispositions like being less motivated, less willing to mix around or less extroverted to attend senior centers.

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So for these staff, that sense of minority clients wasn't really a problem, but simply a matter of cultural preference.

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Other stuff, however, using a more structural frame. Not that these preferences did exist, but they were at least in part conditioned by prior experiences or perceptions of exclusion in tempest.

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So for instance, some staff know that that even though yes, Malimo team clients, they prefer to spend time the most due to religious priorities later in life.

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It was also because it was much easier for them to make friends in this ethnically homogeneous environment where everyone was speaking the same language as compared to being in a senior center where 89% of time they would be hearing a different language that they were used to.

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And so for this staff minority absences are much more structural problem located in harder centers inadvertently meet their clients feel unwelcome.

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And so finally, staff also had divergent perspectives towards their ideals and obligations toward inclusion.

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Although all stuff in my study saw the value in ensuring that the spaces were open for all, regardless of race language and religion, Not everyone saw the value in differentiating their programs or which approaches along cultural lines.

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Some felt that diversifying their programs might controlling make their clients more self-conscious of the ethnic differences and would just violated our principles of treating everyone equally.

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So this program executive told me that she didn't want her clients to have that kind of mindset at different ways.

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Meant in different race or different treatment in this sense. Many staff would use these kind of colorblind frames to rationalize and that legitimize minority apps and also noted that they didn't really see a need to differentiate their programs because none of them minority seniors have mentioned any concerns or voiced out any problems.

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Many of these staff also know that they had never considered issues of ethnic inclusion in their centers before our interviews or engagements.

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Other staff of course who use a more color-conscious approach. Noted that the onus is on them to pay a little bit more attention to their minority clients since the smaller numbers of minority clients made it much easier but it needs to just go overlooked.

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These staff also felt like their clients are often implicitly expected. To assimilate or compromise to the preferences of the majority and that it was on them to go the extra mile to make them minority audiences feel more welcome.

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So this could manifest in ways like giving them an extra call to get them to attend activities. Paying a bit more attention to them during programs.

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And so in summary, my presentation has shown how senior center staff face this specific resource and attitudinal barriers in entering ethnic inclusion, which I think has contributed to the historical underutilization of senior center services in Singapore.

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So although my study isn't situated very heavily in the Singaporean context, my hope is that some of these findings and implications will be helpful for policy and breakfast in other Asian contexts around the world, especially when minority older adults are seen to be interfacing and interacting with these institutional structures and institutional arrangements.

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So, I'll just share a few of them here. I think it would be helpful for policy makers and senior center operators to consider how they can expand the ethnic diversity and linguistic diversity of their vendors.

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To help senior centers execute more culturally attractive programs. And here it's important to note that even if the takeout rates for these programs may be low and inefficient in a way.

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I think these programmes go a long way in helping to change neighbourhood or community perceptions that these centers are already catering towards any particular ethnic group.

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Secondly, many of my staff in this study shed a lot of helpful ideas and success stories. For including minority audiences as well as a very candid thoughts and worries.

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I think it would be helpful for a state agencies to tap on this kind of ground expertise for creating platforms for dialogue and sharing, especially for minority stars to come and share from their vantage point how they view this issue of inclusion and the solve blind spots that they see in senior center practice.

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And of course, finally, as researches, the study emphasizes how we cannot take for granted that living, working, in a multicultural society.

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Necessarily equip staff with all the right skill sets and tools to engage in culturally responsive practices. And I think these divergences in attributes towards inclusion on the ground kind of far-reaching consequences for accessibility.

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And for how would the adults feel comfortable or uncomfortable in senior center settings? And so I think it'll be helpful to think about how we can engage in beta capacity building.

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Have been helping our senior center staff better understand the cultures of their clients as well as helping our seniors center staff better reflect on how their clients might experience marginalization in their centers even if their clients are not actively voicing up.

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And a final thanks to my university and my professors for helping me along and looking forward to any comments you guys might have.

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Thank you.

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Stay that piece because we must have some questions for you. So, said to be rather than structural I need to come up to some businesses that I need to my work home.

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Oh, it's a good idea.

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Are these, I'm interested in how these centers run? Are they, are they private?

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Are they, are they commercial? They're trying to attract people and also by staff I was wondering Are these the people who are working directly with clients or did you also get some responses from the people who were running?

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That the management level or the owners of the business. I would just say a bit about their structure and then we can get in the second question.

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Since Singapore, the government has this funds set up that commissioned different charities to run senior centers.

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So the funding pool for these centers do come from the government where the operators are typically run by private operators like charities or nursing homes who want to branch up.

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And so the issue of equity really comes into play here because this funding pool that's coming in, all the money is coming from taxpayers money that everyone pays money for but in practice you know there's issues of excess and accessibility.

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So for a second question, this funding pool stipulates, I think, each senior center to have around 3 staff.

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And so this includes management level as well. So what we consider typically to be management level are also on the ground interfacing with clients.

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So when I say center manager here, they're also there on the ground interfacing. Usually not by their own will and they would like to be doing more management work but because of manpower limitations everyone that I've talked to here has been interfacing on the ground.

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So they decision makers. Yeah, the decision makers. I'm Joe Brady from Sydney Uni.

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Fantastic, Study. Thank you very much. Very interesting. Culturally, I'm sure it's very, very complex.

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With the groups that you're talking about. It is focused on the staffs. Ability to be able to deal with different cultural groups coming together.

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But I was also thinking about the interactions between the clients within the centre. And so there would be embedded.

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Cultural beliefs and values and things coming from them as well that the staff might not be able to control.

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So those social interactions between clients, I'm sure that's what they're promoting in their care center.

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So how is that? Or could that be, don't we? Yeah, I do have a theme on this inter-client direction that that I didn't really have the time to include here.

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But so I think it's right there as you point out this cliche behavior homophily behavior that's existed in centers.

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But many staff, particularly from more diverse, more successful centers, have told me that it does take time.

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But over time over familiarity, it's kind of non-threatening contact that the clients of different entities so start to be silo and they'll start to engage and so our staff I suppose position themselves in this dialecting is to think about how they can have programs that encourage intercultural engagement.

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So for example, I shared earlier, having that minority clients take the lead, share more. And so putting the Chinese clients for example in that space, think them as leaders.

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These are ways that TEMA center staff so far have tried to encourage this kind of inter-cultural mixing.

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But I think it's also interesting that the ways that you frame into cultural mixing are important. So some staff will just say, oh, it's just human nature.

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We can't expect them to do this. We come for them to do this. When the other staff will see, yes, but we can gently encourage that.

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And I think this is different in framing that really translates into differences in practice and outcomes. Let it go.

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Okay, so, I gather we had a question from somebody who was online but had to have to leave.

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Before having the opportunity to ask the question. And it was concerning any reflections that you might have about any kind of gendered aspects to the operation of these centers.

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So a hundred percent female. So many staff tell me that in fact, ethnicity is not adopted a concern because they are foremost thinking about gender and how they can get the men to come down.

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And I have a separate sub-dem on this about how men are trying to protect their masculinities and older age facing functional decline functional abilities.

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They think going down to the centers. Might be thought of as soft or because it's such a female dominated environment that the activities are not so interesting.

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So some centers interestingly have sought to segregate a space like a men's room where they have more risky activities like sports or more active things.

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And so that in itself throws up a whole range of dialogue around gender but not a focus here but yes definitely.

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That'll be the topic for your master's thesis. Maybe. Yeah, it's a very impressive piece of undergraduate work.

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So congratulations. It might come back to that again at the end. So congratulations. We might come back to that again at the end, but thank you.

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Okay, great. And next we have Jan Fritz from the University of Cincinnati.

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The topic of addressing the mandatory requirement, mandatory requirement of old

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No, and it's problematic.

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Hi. Thank you for the invitation to take part in this session. Can you hear me?

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Okay, forget, speak up. I'm from the University of Cincinnati, but also the University of Cincinnati, but also the University of Johannesburg.

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Because I'd lived in Sweden for a year and I have bad Swedish and so that was an entry to get in to be able to go to the north. And in truth, when I was there, they told me I was the second person that they had to visit.

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The first one was from Norway. So you see it's a limited group. But what I was looking at was the delivery of services for older people.

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And I was really taken back on how progressive this was. The communities had somebody that would stay in phone contact with people.

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You know, what a what a nice idea to be able to do that. Or if you were in your home and the weather was bad or you weren't feeling well, you could move to a facility for older people during that time and then be able to move back to your your situation.

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The place where older people lived the lunchroom at lunch was open for everybody in the community so you didn't have people being isolated.

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Because they were only there with your assigned table. And this is just some of them. There were many things going on.

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I was totally impressed. Anyway, I'm at this meeting of the Executive Committee for the ISA and we've got the Swedish representative there and I've known her for several years and but she was really angry and upset that day.

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And I said, what's the matter? And she said she had to quit work. And I said, I thought she must be sick or her parents were sick.

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I just couldn't imagine why she was doing this. And then she told me about that they had compulsory retirement.

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And I said, you're kidding. I'm just back from looking at all these progressive things that are done.

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I just can't believe this situation. And I hadn't thought about it much. I mean at the time I was really astonished.

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But now I'm a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg. And I'm watching people have to retire.

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They're fully functioning one day and the next day they're out. And if they're lucky, they get a short-term contract to come back to do the same things they were doing before and perhaps at a lower pay rate and with less benefits.

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And I'm older than these people, so I'm distinguished but they're chopped liver, you know, they're out of here.

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And I got to thinking about this. I'm on the executive committee of the ISA now and I decided even though we have a human rights group but in fact it just reacts to things that are going on somewhere else, it doesn't initiate things, which I've always found sort of problematic.

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And I knew we had not done much ever with a policy statement but I decided here are these people who teach human rights and social justice as an organization we should be doing something about this.

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So I decided to put forward a policy statement that we were opposed to mandatory retirement of older adults. And it was interesting.

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I learned something. I thought this would be so easy. It was difficult. I cannot tell you how many individual conversations I had to have and to listen to people's stories because many of them grew up in countries where this was quote unquote normal to have people have to retire at a certain age.

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And I had people say things to me like, well, but then they could write a book or they can be on vacation, and they were serious and I was just totally shocked.

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Finally, I had to go dirty as I refer to it and say, you know, we're a membership organization.

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These people are not going to be able to afford to belong to this organization. They're not going to be able to come to your meetings if in fact we don't do something about this.

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And some of them told me how they'd had to retire, but they hadn't told anybody else.

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And one person told me they were several years away from it, but people in their academic department were already telling them it was a good thing they were going to have to retire.

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Anyway, I finally got this, so we have a policy statement. It's buried on the ISA website.

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That's another thing I'm working on is to get this website a little different so you can actually find things that might be something you want to know without having to go 5 clicks to be able to find it.

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But anyway, I have had a number of Fulbrights and I got one to go to Iceland and this was maybe a year and a half ago now and I got one to go to Iceland and this was maybe a year and a half ago now and I was maybe a year and a half ago now and I was supposed to be there for 4 months

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and a half ago now. And I was supposed to be there for 4 months and you have to say ahead of time what your projects are and you have to say ahead of time what your projects are and I've told you to say ahead of time what your projects are and I've told you what I work on and so a couple of the projects I

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proposed were that and I was given this form on period to be there. But I've just gone through this exercise with the ISA to try to get them to do this.

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And so I was really shocked to find that Iceland and the reason I'm going there is because of their progressive policy developments had a mandatory retirement age for older adults.

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So because I knew this, I had looked at some of the research people had done and the ones who had interviewed people about this situation.

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And so I met with several of them about this and I said, look, if you know anybody that went through mandatory retirement, I don't want you to tell me their names now, but talk to them and if they're interested in talking with me I would be interested in talking with them.

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Everybody got back to me and everybody got a lot of names. I was overwhelmed with the number of people who wanted to talk about this.

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And what I found is a lot of them didn't want to retire. And I also, if you can have something funny or not so funny.

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Many times when I go to other countries I'm living by myself in an apartment or some kind of hotel.

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But this time I stayed with a family. And in this case, the woman who in the family was finishing her doctorate and what they were looking at is who had to retire in the department that she was interested in.

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As you can imagine, Iceland does not have that many universities if you want a university position. So you're looking to see where that open position should be.

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So here I am, the enemy living in the midst of somebody who hopes to get a job from somebody else because they have to retire.

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Anyway, after doing this, I started to interview these people and I began to realize while the one organization that represented older people there had gone on record saying they opposed mandatory retirement.

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It was quite of a quiet decision and that people didn't speak up. So I decided instead of doing the things I was supposed to do that I would start to look at mandatory retirement.

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How many of you attended the recent UN open-ended aging open-ended working group on aging.

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Anybody?

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Well, because I got interested in this, this was put in place in 2,010 and they were given a mandate to to come up with some kind of a convention dealing with the rights of older people.

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And you know that there is such a document for young people and it's been very effective but there's nothing for older people.

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Older people are mentioned in the number of UN documents or they have a category of other which an older person could fit under.

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I was shocked to find that they'd been given a mandate in 2,010 to come up with as soon as possible.

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Side event for and I worked with Help Age International. I invited them to join us in putting this on.

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We had some 200 people attended but what we're trying to do is to get a convention as soon as possible.

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I wanted to tell you how slow the UN works. We there all week, right? And the outcome is they're going to meet more than one a year.

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Okay, that may do it for some people, but it didn't get me feeling really good about the situation.

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I'm actually been asked to take a look at a draft document that's coming out of one country out of their Human Rights Commission and I'm so I'm doing that and if anybody is interested in that if you see me I'd be happy to talk with you about it.

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Mandatory retirement as I mentioned is not in a few countries, but there's a huge number of countries that it's involved in.

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And currently working on beside the one I did on Iceland, I'm now working on a comparison between the mandatory retirement policies in Iceland and South Korea.

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In South Korea, most often they call it involuntary retirement rather than mandatory. And the reason is that employers are getting rid of older people because they've also got something that says as you age you should be paid more.

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So if you have also got something that says as you age you should be paid more. So if you have a choice you get rid of the older person and says as you age you should be paid more.

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So if you have a choice you get rid of the older person and so that's why the word involuntary retirement is usually used there.

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The World Health Organization in 2,021 talked about institutional ageism and usually when I talk with other groups I go on about this with this group I don't think I need to so I'm sure you know what that is but they talked about 2 things as examples of institutional ageism policies in the health sector that allow care to be rationed by age and in the

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labor sector discriminatory hiring practices or mandatory retirement. So it's something that should be done and in some of the countries there's even a difference in age for mandatory retirement for women and And as women are living longer and may have had positions that weren't paid very much, this is really an issue that needs to be considered. Why did I want to look at this in Iceland?

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Iceland is number one in the world for gender equality and has been for 13 years. And it also this last year was number one in the world for pensions.

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They really have a very interesting. They have a state pension as well as a private pension system that everybody has to contribute to.

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So when you do retire, you do have sources from 2 and that's why it's number one in the world.

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Most of our other countries, the US is a C the South Africa's a sea, you know, we don't do very well on pensions in general.

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But I wanted there because if I could get them to move. On this issue. It would mean that it could be a good example to other countries.

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Here's somebody that progressive policy developments and there were many that come out of Iceland.

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This is just not one of them. So before I left, I decided to write to each of the members of parliament that were only like 63 so I wrote an individual letter to each member I sent them a copy of the paper several of the members of parliament asked to meet with me and I did and I also was invited to be on their national political

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show every Sunday. I watched it because I lived with a family that watched it, so I would see it on, but it was an Icelandic.

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And I don't speak Icelandic. I have bad Swedish which allows me to see what some of the words mean in Icelandic but that's about it.

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And I was invited to be on the show and I mentioned this because the Fulbright people were really angry with me that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to do but when they found out I got invited on the national television show they had never had a Fulbright person on a national television show talking about a policy issue.

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Out of this process, I came up with several possibilities of what could be done. Countries, companies and other organizations need to understand that mandatory retirement is a human rights issue.

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And frequently it's not a couch like that. So you really need to say why it's a human rights issue.

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To if there is a category approach for mandatory retirement. Like even in the US we may have that for pilots.

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There's some discussion now about raising that age because there are not enough pilots. So I guess you can be okay physically a few years later because now we don't have enough pilots so that you can raise that is.

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That you can do periodic individual assessments. And it's interesting people haven't thought about that as a possibility but if there are some areas that you think that because as we know there are many tracks staging and you can't just hold one that everybody is going to fit in.

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One of the other suggestions is words are important. I was shocked reading so much of the literature which talked about this mandatory retirement business as a normal retirement age.

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What is normal about something that's imposed about which you have no choice? Also the word elderly was often used and sometimes in some of the languages elderly means that you don't have as many capacities as you might have had before.

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And I still find the language business and I really was shocked to see so many sociologists were doing this.

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Pensions do not have to be linked to mandatory retirement. And so I started to meet with labor unions to be able to discuss this.

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And what I found is they don't trust policymakers to be able to put these 2 things as separate issues.

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You know, and some people could retire in a pension earlier than others, but people could still make a choice.

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And these demonstrations in France give you an idea of something about how difficult this is. Employers need to establish an age-friendly policy in their organization and frequently they don't when training comes up or somebody's going to be promoted off an age as a part of it rather than capability.

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Ageism can be directed at oneself. Again, this is something I don't need to talk about here, but it's sometimes referred to as the enemy within.

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And I always thought that phrase was really a good one. The UN open-ended working group on aging really needs to get its act together.

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I am so glad that one country, human rights people are starting to put a draft convention together. And that should have been done a long time ago by the UN Open-ended group.

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By the way, that UN Open-end group on aging, it always sounds because it's a working group.

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It always sounds like it's something small. It's all the members of the UN. So just kind of strange phrasing.

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I encourage older adults to speak up. If you're in this situation and you're in your country.

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People don't know it. I find people are afraid to say things to other people. And some of them do it under the guise, and particularly in academics that I'm going to give a job to a younger person because I've stepped aside and if you start to look at a lot of fields that doesn't

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happen, administrators and educational institutions are thrilled with this because they often don't want to hire people in certain departments.

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So if they get somebody saying, I want to retire because I want a junior person to be able to have it.

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They don't hire the junior person. They're just happy to see you go.

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Retirement transitions. We really haven't done a very good job about that, which means you could be phased retirement re-entry to work.

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There needs to be more programming in that area. Governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations need to start working in partnership to be able to do something about this, not treated as just a policy issue.

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And I put the last one in as kind of a joke for Iceland. And if you're an old fashioned employer and still have a mandatory retirement policy, either include the thank you in the dreaded letter of termination or at least include an individually adapted separate letter of thanks in countries with mandatory retirement you're often just

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told, OK, November, the fifth said you're out of here. And it doesn't make the finishing for work at some place at a very nice something.

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We need to remember that there was a recent survey of some 83,000 people in 57 countries and they found at least one in every 2 at least one in every 2 was ageist for an older person that means don't go on to your front steps because somebody's out there who really doesn't like you and mandatory retirement is one of the things

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that needs to be addressed. Thank you very much.

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If you're interested in the issue, all you have to do is go to research gate and put my name in and you get the chapter.

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It has a lot of information that I think can be useful to countries because I did the background stuff to be able to find it.

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Often people ask me, isn't there a list of countries with mandatory retirement? There is no list.

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You can find a list dealing with pension ages, but you don't have this and in fact in some countries it's very difficult to figure out who's supposed to retire and who's not.

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A lot of times it's the public jobs that have to retire but Netherlands is one that decided the national public a few years back did not have to retire so it's different in every place and you may not even be able to figure out if a country has it or in one sectors.

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But I think we need to do more interviewing of people who are going through this and make some statements out there to get policies to move in ways they haven't.

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Instead of $1,000.

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You're going to have to really speak up by hearing aids have decided to go the way south.

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Thank you for your interesting presence. That a speaker powder I won't hear you. Okay, how does that answer?

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Yeah, there's nothing that's too loud for an older person. Thank you for your presentation.

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As you were talking, it made me think here in Australia we've had an age discrimination act since 2,000. Yeah, there's nothing that's too loud for an older person.

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Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Your presentation. As you were talking, it made me think here in Australia we've had an age discrimination act since 2,004 and Are you able to tell us about the state of age discrimination legislation?

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From your work globally because it seems to me that a basis in law is a good way, one way of countering these kind of policies that you've been talking about.

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Thank you. Appreciate it.

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Anyone else?

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The students. Sorry, so what I was actually asking is, are you, you think of yourself as a rock star, okay?

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Okay. What I wanted to ask then is given that there's age discrimination legislation, OK? What I wanted to ask then is given that there's age discrimination legislation, we've had to ask then is given that there's age discrimination legislation, we've had that in Australia since 2,004 and we have had that since in Australia since 2,004 and we have an age discrimination commissioner hearing you talk made me think oh well maybe

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age discrimination commissioner hearing you talk made me think oh well maybe age discrimination legislation is not that worldwide and we have an age discrimination commissioner hearing you talk made me think oh well maybe age discrimination legislation is not that worldwide and I just wondered if you could comment on that.

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Should I have a question? Yes. Even I'm volunteering at that session. Did you come back?

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Shall I ask my question? Oh, you wanted to ask? Yes. I did.

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You'll have to go back after just putting the microphone back. Okay. No, I have a question.

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Yes we can. So my question is that it's a very interesting talk by the way. Yes we can.

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So my question is that it's a very interesting talk by the way and obviously what you said is that it's a very interesting talk by the way and obviously what you said is a very interesting talk by the way and obviously what you've said is there are certain countries that have mandatory retirement but there are other countries in which the retirement

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age, Australia being that. So I'm wondering in your research or investigations, is there a distinction in the countries that have mandatory retirement versus those that are trying to insist in a way that older people work longer before they access their pension and is that dependent on the service or 2 things one is that dependent on the number of young people and the

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unemployment and 2 is that also predicated on the ability for the state to provide for older people. I'm actually very glad you asked that question because it's a really important one.

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I work in South Africa. We have a horrible unemployment rate. These are 2 separate issues. We don't take human rights away from one group and not give it to the other.

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Then there are ways that it could be done. I'm always worried that the place is going to blow up in South Africa because this has not been dealt with in a way that it should have.

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But it doesn't mean in a place that's got lousy pensions. We are and as people are getting older we're putting very difficult circumstances in place.

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I find that some of my students in South Africa, they will be able to come to class for a certain period of time and then they'll tell me they don't have the transfer anymore because their grandmother doesn't have the money from the pension to be able to give me to be able to go.

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I've never seen that in the United States. It makes me more thinking about, I should ask and have a better connection with students, it makes me more thinking about, I should ask and have a better connection with students for somebody that can be in the same situation.

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I'm from South Africa so I completely understand. Thank you so much. And finally we have Beatrice Lam and colleagues from the Metropolitan University and colleagues from the Metropolitan University of Hong Kong.

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On the topic of intergenerational relations and 3 imaginations of active aging. Observations of students accounts during COVID.

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19. Hello Beatrice, good morning.

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Hi, hello, good morning. Chair, good morning, audience. Could I share the screen now?

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Hi. Yeah, wonderful. Okay, far away. Thank you.

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Okay, thank you.

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Okay, may I ask how many minutes? Do I have for the presentation?

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Sorry.

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Okay.

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So we've we've scheduled about 20 min max but because we'll have 4 papers in this session it's it's not too problematic if you go a little bit over the time but I'll I'll time you for 20 and I'll let you know.

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Okay, okay. Thanks a lot. Okay, so, I will begin my, presentation.

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So, this is a presentation, on some of the findings of a study on ageism.

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So, what I'm going to do is to first explain. How a study on ages would enter into this session about active aging.

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It actually is something that comes up in our data collection. And then I will explain that some of the findings and also putting things in the specific context of Hong Kong.

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So, before, I begin my presentation, would like to acknowledge that, my university have a grand small ground for, funding this small project.

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So, in Hong Kong, we don't have an, active aging policy, even though activating is a frequently mentioned in the programs that is expected to promote what the government would call a healthy aging sorry for the for the missing why here so what they suggest in in promoting healthy aging largely

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follows what is proposed by a worker organization. But one thing that is highlighted is that, in order to promote, a kind of a healthy and active life of older to come back stereotypes about older adults it's very important so that is how we see the 2 things can be linked together in our

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study. And at the same time very s increasing, increasing, noises made about, the important role that technology can play.

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In promoting active aging and this aligns with the aging in place a model of OH care that is how technology can help.

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All the adults are aging at their family environment and it is generally understood that technology can be something that is good for all the adults not only for their independent living but also for them to get around.

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So I will mention I will go back to this later that is why I mentioned a technology specifically. Now, so, I managed to, link activating and, HSM together, by providing you some background information.

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But then why would I be interested, and my colleagues interested in in the generational relations. The thing is that the government in Hong Kong sees promoting harmony across generations is very important to for promoting active aging among other adults but there is not a lot of research to look at activating from this angle.

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That is a what young people or younger generations can do to provide active aging. Pretty often I mean talk about promoting harmony, between different generations.

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The picture is like this. That is, intergenerational relations is something that happens within the family with family members like respect paid by your children young children to their granny's just like when you when you see here.

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Now, we believe that, it is strange that a lot of activating, home grants and emphasize on the kind of activities that you see in the picture earlier, but not placing the agenda in a bigger context of intergenerational relations in Hong Kong society.

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Because there are a lot of, dismay about, from young people, especially about the fact that, the older adults are occupying the top positions of the social ladder so the young people cannot be up any mobile this kind of resentment that has been That has been,

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brewing in Hong Kong for some years already and which have been aggravated by the social movements in the past 10 years.

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Yes.

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So because I'm most, because in other research projects I'm also studying how higher education students think about the higher education students think about their future and employability.

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And so, that is why I come up with this idea about how about, asking high education students about what they think about.

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Aging, getting old and also when they talk about OH, what does it mean? Because, they There is a tendency for media in Hong Kong to associate population aging with words and prospects of high education students of young people in general.

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But actually this contradicts what the government is saying because the government is essentially saying that with a population aging actually young people get more job opportunities especially with the fact that we are expanding industries that serve aging population.

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Now so that's why we we the research team things that maybe it's time to really ask these young people who are actually quite resentful of, the population aging phenomena about how they think about their future and how they would think about.

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Aging. I mean what role of aging and expanding or aging population figure in their understandings of their future in Hong Kong.

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And at the same time, of course, and universities are actively participating in projects that try to in more students in projects are promoting activation and also German technology and also German technology.

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And so we would also be interested to know whether high education students have a exposure in this and how would they experience this and how would they experience this exposure and how would that change?

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And at the same time, of course, our interest is that on the one hand, the government, wants to promote activation flu in Wolfing young people in promoting intergenerational harmony, but at the same time young people are essential about the fact that they are suffering in the economy and at the

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same time they have to finance the post retirement life for all the adults. And so that is also something we would like to explore more in that.

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That is, on the one hand, the government sees intergenerational relations as key to promoting, to promoting, activating, but on the other hand, how do young people think about that?

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It seems that, not a lot of people are interested in how people how young people can figure in a conversations and of course because The study have been carried out in the past one year.

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I think there is a particular pertinence of this research because it is considered that under the pandemic HSM has actually been modified because.

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All the adults have been identified as a high risk group and that a lot of our images about, all the adults, death, death rate and that vulnerability to sickness, have pervade public discourses.

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And so I think putting the study at this time can also address how young people with a force about getting O and OH are kind of shaped by what is happening in that what has been happening in Hong Kong under the pandemic.

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Okay, and, here we also can see references from, the, Western overseas literature suggesting that, COVID-19 actually has a magnified.

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Ages I mean the sense that people thinking about OH is reverting to more biomedical conceptualizations with which actually is supposedly the exact opposite of what activating is about.

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So, at the same time, it has also been pointed out in overseas literature. That the COVID-19 actually has field in the generational tensions that is a young people feeling that they have to be responsible for financing the sickness and financing the future healthcare of older adults as they become more vulnerable in the

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pandemic era. So given what I said earlier about young people sentiments about all the adults in Hong Kong, I think this is a very, tiny to study this, in Hong Kong right now.

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So this is just to show you some, images you can see in Hong Kong that is, that conveys, how HSM is, expressed under COVID.

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For instance, there's a lot of talk about all the adults being ignorant that, they do not know how to.

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They were the mask. They will wash it instead of. Disposing of it, every time they wear it.

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So the understanding is that because a lot of older adults are poor, so they want to save the money to, to buy the mask.

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But actually a lot of young people, especially coming up in the findings is that this is a sign of the stupidity or ignorance of all the adults.

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And at the same time these pictures are captioned actually says for all the adults who refuse vaccination this is a time room for Hong Kong Now the thing, the irony of this report is that there are a lot of, sympathy or compassionate comments made about all the adults are doing the pandemic that, you

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know, being an old adder in Hong Kong is, so miserable because you will die outside the hospital.

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When they're not enough best but on the other hand The attention is also drawn to the fact that it's the older adults who may be responsible for their own vulnerability that is for instance they refuse a vaccination.

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So we are, we are carrying the study. With, these, images in mind.

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So, the studies, focuses on, understanding how, high education students think about OH and then how they think about older adults are treated by the wider society.

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Under the COVID-19. So we.

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Address, what this means to, the students and, we expect that from how these high education students talk about OH and aging and how this manifest in kovat.

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19 we can see how the agesome comes out. So that is how we formulate the project at the beginning and as we start collecting data we realize that what this high education students say Actually, you have, an impact on how policy makers or higher education practitioners like the research team members think about how to teach about

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aging and active aging that is effective aging has to in more high education students and when they are thinking about old age in certain ways, then they certainly have implications about how effective that are the current promotional efforts of active aging can have on the aging population.

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So, this today is informed by, the, perspective that emphasized that, meetings are created in social interactions.

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So we see the how, the students experience under Kobe, 19 and in their everyday life actually shape, how they make sense of getting O and OH and at the same time we have a policy angle that is because there are a lot of policies on matches and act under COVID.

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A lot of high education students, participants in the focus group, attention to what the policy is doing and how that affects the way they think about all the adults and sickness.

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And so this is a also what informs the way we design. Our, design our project.

451
01:23:32.000 --> 01:23:44.000
Now, our approach, from what we have found in the literature, our approach is quite different from, those literature that, measures the extent of HSM or matches the different dimensions of it.

452
01:23:44.000 --> 01:24:08.000
So what we are more interested in is. What this means to our younger people, especially that is how they think about Oh, that is because of the assumption is that how they think about OH explains why they harbor ages attitudes and also the emotional component that is why they are so angry about older adults even when the older adults are

453
01:24:08.000 --> 01:24:24.000
dying. So we believe that a, this a conversation in the focus group and the interactions between the participants, we hope to infer how this HSM comes about and how it is informed by the way these understandings are shaped in a specific context of Hong Kong.

454
01:24:24.000 --> 01:24:34.000
Now, so, what we do is, we, have been doing focus group interviews with, higher education students from diverse discipline backgrounds.

455
01:24:34.000 --> 01:24:50.000
So the literature will suggest that past research in this area, outside Hong Kong, come mainly from, those disciplines to have a direct relationship with aging population like, social care or, ancient studies, gerontology or social work.

456
01:24:50.000 --> 01:25:04.000
But here we, try to we could, students from diverse backgrounds as diverse as possible because we want to know to what extent the higher education curriculum and the disciplinary training actually has an impact.

457
01:25:04.000 --> 01:25:17.000
And we use Locust for because we want to see how the. Interactions between the participants actually can generate a kind of very organic spontaneous sense making about what OH actually mean to them.

458
01:25:17.000 --> 01:25:25.000
So this is the key questions we cover in the focus group interview and what we want to capture is that to elicit the different ways.

459
01:25:25.000 --> 01:25:34.000
The participants talk about our age, in particular how the way they talk about it would change as the focus group discussion goes about.

460
01:25:34.000 --> 01:25:46.000
In particular when we move the discussion from old age in general to OH age under Kobe, then we we observe how they actually change the way they understand the meaning of OH.

461
01:25:46.000 --> 01:26:04.000
And at the same time, we would like to see how what these participants, assess, all the adults functioning that is, do they mainly focus on cognitive functioning, psychological, social, or are they still using very biomedical understandings?

462
01:26:04.000 --> 01:26:16.000
And at the same time because of our interest in the policy angle, we also ask them about, how do you think about older at those in relation to the access to health care and social welfare in general, but particularly under COVID.

463
01:26:16.000 --> 01:26:24.000
19 and they also asked to recall relevant incidents that make them think of older adults in particular ways.

464
01:26:24.000 --> 01:26:37.000
So a big, because of the data collection is still ongoing and because of time limit, I would just highlight certain, findings that we had the research team has, so far.

465
01:26:37.000 --> 01:26:54.000
First of all, the, the young people, these young people actually, express their understanding of who the add those are with both dimensions can be detected that is they Oh, the one hand they are PC that are getting old maybe.

466
01:26:54.000 --> 01:27:10.000
About Active, active participation or meaningful participation, but not so much about physical decline. But at the same time, and this is pertinent to, the emphasis that this takes place in Hong Kong, that is there's a lot of emphasis that older adults are miserable because they can no longer

467
01:27:10.000 --> 01:27:16.000
contribute. And because they don't have a contribute, of course it is not true that they are so miserable.

468
01:27:16.000 --> 01:27:19.000
So that is the kind of logic that we can see the emphasis that all the adults are cannot contribute or protective.

469
01:27:19.000 --> 01:27:30.000
So this because of these are long held as the a kind of spirit of Hong Kong people that is, that can do attitude.

470
01:27:30.000 --> 01:27:37.000
Working hard to strike through adversity. And so, this come up in this young people's narrative as well.

471
01:27:37.000 --> 01:27:47.000
And at the same time, we see that this, yah people saying that all the adults because of that decline have lost the ability to span and consume.

472
01:27:47.000 --> 01:28:03.000
I think this is quite important because they they have this assumption that all the adults no longer work and on the longer consumers they don't follow the new trends they can't follow the fashion and technology is something that is the privilege of young people only.

473
01:28:03.000 --> 01:28:12.000
Now this is particularly important if we if the government is trying to provide technology as something that, that, would facilitate active aging.

474
01:28:12.000 --> 01:28:21.000
And when it comes to the discussion about COVID. These young people, emphasize that, the older adults are sick.

475
01:28:21.000 --> 01:28:32.000
Because of 2 things primarily because of 2 things in the data up to this point first of all The older people don't know about what is happening.

476
01:28:32.000 --> 01:28:44.000
And why they don't know because they can't use technology. So this is one of the kind of logical, explanation about, why older adults are as miserable as a what they see, under COVID.

477
01:28:44.000 --> 01:28:54.000
19 and at the same time, while this, young students, they see that young people, the older adults have this kind of ignorance and lack of ability to judge that makes them sick.

478
01:28:54.000 --> 01:29:04.000
At the same time they also have a tendency to blame the government for everything that older adults are dealing with.

479
01:29:04.000 --> 01:29:17.000
But what is obvious here is that there is a dislike of, or lack of awareness of more structural and institutional issues like How our social welfare and health care is like.

480
01:29:17.000 --> 01:29:28.000
And at the same time a class that is the diversity of older adults so it seems that they are not very sensitive to diversity among the older adults population and also how older adults and older older adults and young older adults are faring differently.

481
01:29:28.000 --> 01:29:55.000
It seems they are not very sensitive to this. And a surprise to the research team is also of the fact that these are very popular past words used by the government in dealing with the ageing population actually do not seem to ring about to certain to certain students from disciplinary from certain disciplinary backgrounds like humanities or

482
01:29:55.000 --> 01:30:10.000
business. So, those groups who are more aware of this for us come from social sciences or aging and studies who who have core curriculum that engages with a discussion about aging.

483
01:30:10.000 --> 01:30:31.000
And lastly, because of the literature and sorry. Because of the literature and what we see about a young people resentment young people's resentment about all the We, I apologize that I intergenerational conflict may come up in some, in some instance in the in the generation or in the

484
01:30:31.000 --> 01:30:52.000
narratives of the participants that is they will think that this COVID-19 actually has make young people more miserable because they have to face this expansion of care work performed for all the adults and the government is spending a lot of effort in protecting all the adults and forgetting about young people.

485
01:30:52.000 --> 01:31:03.000
But, this actually do not come up in, in all the groups. So, we still have to do more in the analysis to see how disciplinary backgrounds may have contributed to this.

486
01:31:03.000 --> 01:31:23.000
So, to conclude, what I have share, what we try to do, in this research is to capture how young people think about, OH and aging and how this helps us understand, how ages are manifest in, the specific context of Hong Kong.

487
01:31:23.000 --> 01:31:29.000
In a so-called post COVID era and at the same time with, what has happened in the past 10 years.

488
01:31:29.000 --> 01:31:51.000
In mind that is the social movements are kind of a tearing up the relations between different generations and from this, my researching is thinking about how this could inform, our teaching of active aging that is, and how we can for more activating by involving young, young people when they think about old age

489
01:31:51.000 --> 01:32:04.000
and aging in the ways that I have just explained. And of course, Beijing as a concept have certain assumptions which have been, already discussed in, the literature that at on more critical perspective that is, how activating itself can be exclusive.

490
01:32:04.000 --> 01:32:31.000
And in particular, excluding, more disadvantage participants and also the issue about gender seems to be absent in how students present their narratives and that is also something we are interested in looking for the further into and of course, what we ultimately want to do is to try to use the findings to,

491
01:32:31.000 --> 01:32:40.000
provide certain, Insights about how intergenerational relations can be addressed or involved in endeavors to promote active aging.

492
01:32:40.000 --> 01:32:54.000
And lastly, as a high education teacher who teaches physiology of aging. In the classroom I wonder what I can do And of course, this is a very small scale study and I'm addressing the Hong Kong context in particular.

493
01:32:54.000 --> 01:32:58.000
So, I can't tell how this study will be significant or contributing to the holder literature.

494
01:32:58.000 --> 01:33:05.000
But that is why I'm presenting here. I would like to hear your views. Thank you.

495
01:33:05.000 --> 01:33:13.000
Thank you very much Beatrice. Sorry.

496
01:33:13.000 --> 01:33:22.000
Yeah, I should have also said thank you for getting up. That's what was a very early hour for you and following us all this time.

497
01:33:22.000 --> 01:33:27.000
Do we have any questions from the audience?

498
01:33:27.000 --> 01:33:37.000
Yes, please. We might need the, sorry to bother you. By the way, I also meant to say I never caught your name in the beginning.

499
01:33:37.000 --> 01:33:56.000
You give us the You, okay, it's actually wonderful to have. Volunteerists involved here. I don't think I've been to a conference before where the volunteer involvement would have been so planful and you know really it makes The chair still helps so much easier as well.

500
01:33:56.000 --> 01:34:09.000
And all the more impressive because they seem to have. Matched people who have. A degree sometimes even a very high degree of interest in the sessions.

501
01:34:09.000 --> 01:34:16.000
Yeah, yes, absolutely absolutely so so thank you Yep. Thank you. Thank you, Beatrice.

502
01:34:16.000 --> 01:34:24.000
Very interesting. Also, thank you for getting up at this very early hour and your part of the world.

503
01:34:24.000 --> 01:34:41.000
I was interested to know the last slide got me thinking about this in particular in regard to the role of intergenerational relations in particular in regard to the role of intergenerational but intergenerational relations in the wider societal context and how they can be Have you given any consideration to the idea of intergenerational

504
01:34:41.000 --> 01:34:51.000
learning? Where younger and older people, I'm sure you know that concept brought together as a way of promoting good intergenerational relations.

505
01:34:51.000 --> 01:34:53.000
Thank you.

506
01:34:53.000 --> 01:35:03.000
Thanks a lot. We haven't, tailored our study design, to this, perspective, in particular, but actually this comes up.

507
01:35:03.000 --> 01:35:20.000
Pigini in, this, participants, discussion about, how they get to know what all the adults are like that is they will talk about how they participate in activities together.

508
01:35:20.000 --> 01:35:29.000
With, the older adults to learn something that, Neither of them have, know much about, but, because I'm not familiar with, this concept as a whole.

509
01:35:29.000 --> 01:35:50.000
I'm not sure whether I, misunderstood, what you mean. But, yeah, thanks for this, providing this angle because, the thing is that a lot of, participants, have this exposure to over others either from their own family members or a.

510
01:35:50.000 --> 01:36:08.000
Volunteer poll brands not necessarily taking place in a university but but are organized by NGOs and very often they they talk about how from this kind of, instances, they learn something, but at the same time they see that older adults still can learn.

511
01:36:08.000 --> 01:36:13.000
But, so far we, the research team hasn't particularly pay attention to this.

512
01:36:13.000 --> 01:36:32.000
And so perhaps, what you said, would, allow me to have this additional perspective when we, when we, carry out a further focus group, sessions and also when we analyze the data.

513
01:36:32.000 --> 01:36:33.000
You

514
01:36:33.000 --> 01:36:37.000
I hope this, yeah, is a appropriate response. Thank you.

515
01:36:37.000 --> 01:36:46.000
Great, thank you very much. And any other questions for? Beatrice, yes please.

516
01:36:46.000 --> 01:37:02.000
Hi Beatrice, thank you for your presentation. It was very interesting. I'm sorry if I missed this question but I'm just wondering what the students did students give any information about their family experiences of aging?

517
01:37:02.000 --> 01:37:03.000
Yeah.

518
01:37:03.000 --> 01:37:05.000
Was that a question in your study that I missed?

519
01:37:05.000 --> 01:37:17.000
Yeah, thanks a lot. Yeah, that's a very important issue. We didn't particularly include the family, in our, in our interview guy.

520
01:37:17.000 --> 01:37:26.000
Okay. And but at the, but, because we, always are students, that is a why do you think in this way or how, How do you learn that all the adults are like this?

521
01:37:26.000 --> 01:37:34.000
Very often they refer to the family members, not only their grannies, but also their own parents.

522
01:37:34.000 --> 01:37:49.000
That is, on the one hand, a lot of stereotypes. Come from what they observe within the family but this is a pertinent for our study or for our positioning of the study under the covert context.

523
01:37:49.000 --> 01:37:59.000
Because, very often they would refer to the struggles or the difficulties. They, are dealing with their older adults under the pandemic.

524
01:37:59.000 --> 01:38:12.000
That is, not only the care work, but also the kind of conflicts or what they perceive to be a stubbornness or ignorance that they observe in the older generations under the COVID situation.

525
01:38:12.000 --> 01:38:28.000
For instance, they will say that the government, emphasize that we need to use some kind of apps in order to access information in order to exit certain places and because the older adults not good with this kind of apps.

526
01:38:28.000 --> 01:38:42.000
And so they would be the one who have to do it for the older adults. And this actually, reinforce the understanding that's all the adults are in at least about technology and that they have to be dependent.

527
01:38:42.000 --> 01:38:51.000
On young people so very often this kind of a story lines happen in, they, when they recount.

528
01:38:51.000 --> 01:39:04.000
How they experience COVID-19 and because a lot of people. Lockdown or they are they are they mean the mobility is limited within the home and so the people that are dealing with other and family members.

529
01:39:04.000 --> 01:39:25.000
So this is very obvious when they talk about COVID. If you are talking about the kind of ages understandings in in general then More often than we're referring to the kind of older adults they see in the street when they go to school or when they participate in voluntary activities.

530
01:39:25.000 --> 01:39:29.000
Thank you Beatrice. I'm not sure if you can see it on your screen but we have a question on your screen but we have a question from online participants.

531
01:39:29.000 --> 01:39:31.000
Oh yeah.

532
01:39:31.000 --> 01:39:42.000
Can you see this from Charles F in the chat. Question reads the conflict seems to be contrary to a common understanding of the Asian culture of respect for the old.

533
01:39:42.000 --> 01:39:44.000
Could you comment on that?

534
01:39:44.000 --> 01:39:58.000
Yeah, thanks a lot for this question. This is actually one thing that the young people Do not like that is, the, to invoke that it is.

535
01:39:58.000 --> 01:40:09.000
Chinese culture or Chinese traditions that you should They are actually quite and trouble with this, that is they would think that, we are equal.

536
01:40:09.000 --> 01:40:16.000
Hierarchy should be breaking down. So why should I respect you? I have you respected me.

537
01:40:16.000 --> 01:40:18.000
Now this doesn't come with for COVID. It has been, in Hong Kong for quite a while.

538
01:40:18.000 --> 01:40:34.000
Start, I mean beginning from instances like whether priorities on the metro must be given to other adults if A young, girl is having a pain from her period.

539
01:40:34.000 --> 01:40:41.000
This is the same as well this comes up in the focus for discussion. So I think, this is one thing that actually make them resentful.

540
01:40:41.000 --> 01:40:42.000
So I think, this is one thing that actually make them resentful. So I think, this is one thing that actually make them resentful.

541
01:40:42.000 --> 01:40:57.000
They emphasize that the emphasis that you should respect the older adults and, Chinese people are like a big family and you should have harmonious relationship with one another and because this is exactly how the government tries to promote.

542
01:40:57.000 --> 01:41:15.000
In warfang young people in promoting active aging And, the thing is that because as I, comment earlier, participants in some of the groups are not aware of this concept at all and so they would just say I mean this is an older people's problem.

543
01:41:15.000 --> 01:41:22.000
What has that to do with me except for the fact that you may be occupying the upper positions of the social ladder?

544
01:41:22.000 --> 01:41:28.000
Making me very difficult. I'm making it very difficult for me to find a job. So that's what we see.

545
01:41:28.000 --> 01:41:33.000
So I hope, this, help, help me answer the question posted in the chat.

546
01:41:33.000 --> 01:41:43.000
Yes. Yeah, thank you very much. That's that's certainly very very fascinating account of major What I imagined to be major cultural change.

547
01:41:43.000 --> 01:41:56.000
Finally, anyone else from the audience? Yeah, thank you. You certainly raise a lot of, as do all of the other presentations, by the way, as do all of the other presentations by the way, a lot of very pertinent.

548
01:41:56.000 --> 01:42:09.000
Questions that that we still need to be looking at and suddenly your one of your final points about the contextualization of of active aging.

549
01:42:09.000 --> 01:42:17.000
Yes, indeed. And I imagine Hong Kong to be in some ways quite similar to Finland in this regard because Finland is also very very highly technologized society.

550
01:42:17.000 --> 01:42:43.000
In fact it is virtually impossible now to transact any business with So welfare authorities or the government or indeed most actors within the private sector as well without quite sophisticated know-how and access to.

551
01:42:43.000 --> 01:42:56.000
Technology and I actually sort of experienced this as quite alienating when I moved back to Finland. After about 3 decades of living somewhere else.

552
01:42:56.000 --> 01:43:14.000
Yes, it was quite a major sort of cultural lesson for me to realize that everything is now on a platform or an app and I imagine that direction of development is very similar.

553
01:43:14.000 --> 01:43:15.000
Yes.

554
01:43:15.000 --> 01:43:24.000
Hong Kong. Can you maybe just very, very briefly comment on that or whether there's some kind of st.

555
01:43:24.000 --> 01:43:25.000
Okay.

556
01:43:25.000 --> 01:43:39.000
In person or paper based or alternative channels that are available. Alongside the IT ICT based waste of accessing services.

557
01:43:39.000 --> 01:43:40.000
Okay.

558
01:43:40.000 --> 01:43:42.000
In fact, in Finland it has gone as far as they're organizing virtual lunch times for adulthood and receipt of home care.

559
01:43:42.000 --> 01:43:43.000
Yeah. Right.

560
01:43:43.000 --> 01:43:51.000
So they're supposed to log in and demonstrate eating online and and socialize in in principle online during the meal times.

561
01:43:51.000 --> 01:43:55.000
Right. Okay.

562
01:43:55.000 --> 01:44:06.000
Yeah, could I, comment here, corresponding to your comment on technology and also the response from the audience about major cultural shift.

563
01:44:06.000 --> 01:44:19.000
I think the major cultural shift may need to be. Qualified. I think the situation is complicated because the social movements in the past 10 years actually have.

564
01:44:19.000 --> 01:44:34.000
Have made young people saying that the older tends to be the more politically conservative. And so, the issue is maybe more politicized than what it appears in my presentation.

565
01:44:34.000 --> 01:44:40.000
And that is also why it triggers so much resentment among young people because, at least as what it is represented to overseas media.

566
01:44:40.000 --> 01:45:06.000
Young people are seen to be the the people who push the social movement ahead And so the older adults are not only seen as obstacles in social mobility but also off obstacles in in allowing the social movement to blossom So I mean, of course, that they ignore a lot of diversity here, but I think that is

567
01:45:06.000 --> 01:45:15.000
one. One very important context that is at the very rapidly changing political contacts in Hong Kong.

568
01:45:15.000 --> 01:45:23.000
In the past 2 years, 3 years, basically. And at the same time, in regard to the technology.

569
01:45:23.000 --> 01:45:29.000
Issue. Hong Kong is trying to make I mean the government is trying to Hong Kong to make to be a smart city.

570
01:45:29.000 --> 01:45:44.000
Okay, smart homes, smart cities, but from the from the eyes of young people, then we think that this is a kind of surveillance on young people because young people are concerned to be rebellious because they all participate in social movements.

571
01:45:44.000 --> 01:45:56.000
And, so, if you put this into the political context in Hong Kong, The issue about aging can have this kind of political meetings, which may mean you can't see this.

572
01:45:56.000 --> 01:46:04.000
When you look at how the government promote active aging and this of course is a very tricky issue to deal with in the higher education classroom.

573
01:46:04.000 --> 01:46:24.000
So if you take into account this very delicate that I can't use you. You would think that you would kind of understand why, It seems that a lot of things that's not spoken.

574
01:46:24.000 --> 01:46:25.000
Yeah.

575
01:46:25.000 --> 01:46:30.000
When we talk about HSM and activating and, promoting harmony between generations. Yeah, that is, how I see it, but it's not very easy to address this because of the sensibilities.

576
01:46:30.000 --> 01:46:33.000
In Hong Kong right now.

577
01:46:33.000 --> 01:46:52.000
Yeah, thank you very much for sharing that with us. That that certainly puts very interesting perspective on relationships between generations in a situation where as you describe, they are quite significant differences in stances regarding politics.

578
01:46:52.000 --> 01:47:02.000
Okay, I think we've covered quite a lot of ground today and we've moved between very, very distant parts of the world.

579
01:47:02.000 --> 01:47:09.000
I think we've gone from Iceland to South Africa and from Spain to Singapore. In the course of this session.

580
01:47:09.000 --> 01:47:20.000
So I'd like to thank everybody very much for contributing and for participating. And, yeah.

581
01:47:20.000 --> 01:47:23.000
Look, further discussions. Thank you so much. Thank you.

582
01:47:23.000 --> 01:47:25.000
Thank you.