Ageism is a widespread phenomenon and constitutes a significant threat to older people’s well-being. Identifying the factors contributing to ageism is critical to inform policies that minimise its societal impact. In this systematic review, we gathered and summarised empirical studies exploring the key determinants of ageism against older people for a period of over forty years (1970–2017). A comprehensive search using fourteen databases identified all published records related to the umbrella concept of “ageism”. Reviewers independently screened the final pool to identify all papers focusing on determinants, according to a predefined list of inclusion and exclusion criteria. All relevant information was extracted and summarised following a narrative synthesis approach. A total of 199 papers were included in this review. We identified a total of 14 determinants as robustly associated with ageism. Of these, 13 have an effect on other-directed ageism, and one on self-directed ageism. The quality of contact with older people and the positive or negative presentation of older people to others emerged as the most robust determinants of other-directed ageism; self-directed ageism is mostly determined by older adults’ health status. Given the correlational nature of most studies included in this review, inferences on causality should be made cautiously.

All over the developed world, populations as a whole and the workforce within them are ageing. Old age discrimination in the sphere of the workplace, prejudices against older workers, and discrimination of older employees have moved into the focus of politicians, employers, trade unions, and social scientists alike. As ageism at the workplace has not only negative consequences for older workers, but also for companies’ productivity and performance, the aim should be to avoid the occurrence of ageism and mitigate its impact. In order to be able to fight ageism, it is important to trace its origins. Research on ageism in the workforce generally refers to the micro, meso and macro level determinants of ageism. Even though companies and organizations on the meso level have a great impact on the occurrence of ageist behaviour—as they provide ‘the places of work’—this level is seldom looked at systematically. This chapter therefore aims to present a conclusive overview of theories and findings in the scientific literature regarding the role of organizations/companies in cultivating, preserving or reducing ageism within them. First, the chapter looks at organizational characteristics that affect ageism, such as organizational/company structure and hierarchy, age structure of the workforce, company size, shared values and aspects of age-friendly human resource management. As organizations/companies never exist within an institutional vacuum, in a second step we subsequently identify contextual factors, such as sectorial affiliation and legal frameworks that shape and affect companies and organizational behaviour, and hence ageism within the organization.

The precarious financial situation of many elderly women in developed countries is well established. Nevertheless, in-depth insight into the persistent vulnerability of this group remains largely absent. In this article, we demonstrate how a specific focus on the interaction between work history, family history and pension regulations can provide greater insight into the mechanisms that produce poverty among elderly women in Belgium. To that end, we make use of register data on some 9,000 women aged 65–71. Data on the poverty risk of these women is linked to career and family data, spanning over 45 years. We find that pension policy can indeed account for the higher poverty risk of some groups of elderly women (e.g.divorcees) as compared to others (e.g.widows). Similarly, pension policy can, to a large extent, directly or indirectly explain how previous lifecourse events, such as marital dissolution or childbirth, affect old-age poverty risk. However, our study also reveals some unexpected findings. Most notably, pension regulations fail to account for the beneficial situation of married women. Indeed, our analyses suggest that capital (income) may prove more decisive than pension rights in explaining the low poverty risk of married women when compared to other marital groups. Drawing from our findings, we conclude with some suggestions as to where pension policy should go from here.

Modernization theory has often been used to explain country differences in levels of ageism. The commentary at hand questions its usefulness in the analysis of ageism today for two reasons. First, modernization theory was developed to discuss social status of older people, not ageism. Second, social policies and management practices that emerged with industrialization are being rolled back over the last decades. We therefore argue for the reconsideration of the relationship between modernization and ageism and to re-assess it in order to better explain country differences in ageism in the 21st century.

In this article, we analyse the role exclusion plays in three theories explaining the provision of informal care for the elderly: norms and roles (sociological institutionalism), the availability and accessibility of formal care (rational choice institutionalism) and concerns about balancing time and money (rational choice theory). Feeding into the discussion on agency in old-age exclusion literature, we argue that exclusion shapes informal care provision in all three theories: social exclusion enforces norms, civic exclusion hinders appropriate formal care provision and economic exclusion reduces the opportunity costs of informal care. Hence, exclusion structures positions and power relations in care negotiation processes. The study shows that exclusion should not only be analysed as an outcome but also as a force shaping the life conditions of older people. The argument is supported using data from qualitative interviews with stakeholders in informal elder care in a Turkish immigrant community in Belgium. Intersections of gender, generation and migration status are taken into account.

The aim of this paper is to analyse how the nature of retirement is related to post-retirement life conditions among early retirees. As to the nature of retirement, we make use of the concepts of push, pull and jump to describe why individuals retire early. Push is analysed as an outcome of poor health and firings, pull as a mechanical (reflective) response to economic and symbolic signals of the welfare state, while jump is described as a reflexive process; jumpers strive for new experiences (a new life project) and/or social gains (to be more together with grandchildren). Post-retirement life conditions are analysed in a four-dimensional citizenship perspective: (a) economic, (b) social and (c) political citizenship, as well as the feeling of having (d) 'equal social worth' vis-a-vis fellow citizens. Results show that role transitions are strongly affected by the nature of retirement. Jumpers largely seem to be shielded from low levels of citizenship in old age. Those pushed out of the labour market indeed run a rather high risk of lacking citizenship, epitomised as loss of economic and social citizenship as well as a low sense of having equal social worth vis-a-vis fellow citizens. No conclusive results were found for older workers subject to pull. Pullers made up a rather small proportion of total sample.