IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/socinc/v7y2019i3p17-26.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Are the Structural Barriers to Planning for Later Life? A Scoping Review of the Literature

Author

Listed:
  • Claire Preston

    (Humanities and Social Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University, UK)

  • Nick Drydakis

    (Economics, Finance and Law, Anglia Ruskin University, UK)

  • Suzanna Forwood

    (Psychology and Sport Science, Anglia Ruskin University, UK)

  • Suzanne Hughes

    (Nursing and Midwifery, Anglia Ruskin University, UK)

  • Catherine Meads

    (Nursing and Midwifery, Anglia Ruskin University, UK)

Abstract

The rollback of the welfare state in countries such as the UK, coupled with population ageing, have contributed to a situation in which responsibility for older people’s wellbeing is placed more heavily on the individual. This is exemplified in the notion in popular and policy circles that individuals should plan for later life, particularly financially, and a corresponding concern that they are not doing so sufficiently. This scoping review aimed to identify the structural factors which inhibit people from engaging in planning for later life. For the purposes of this review, we characterised planning as the range of activities people deliberately pursue with the aim of achieving desired outcomes in later life. This entails a future, as opposed to shorter-term, goal orientation. In study selection, we focused on planning at mid-life (aged 40 to 60). Systematic and snowball searching identified 2,317 studies, of which 36 were included in the final qualitative synthesis. The review found that limited financial resources were a key barrier to planning. Related factors included: living in rented accommodation, informal caring, and working part-time. A lack of support from employers, industry, regulators and landlords was also found to inhibit planning. The findings suggest that certain sections of society are effectively excluded from planning. This is particularly problematic if popular and policy discourse comes to blame individuals for failing to plan. The review also provides a critical perspective on planning, highlighting a tendency in the literature towards individualistic and productivist interpretations of the concept.

Suggested Citation

  • Claire Preston & Nick Drydakis & Suzanna Forwood & Suzanne Hughes & Catherine Meads, 2019. "What Are the Structural Barriers to Planning for Later Life? A Scoping Review of the Literature," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 17-26.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:7:y:2019:i:3:p:17-26
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/1883
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sara M. Moorman & Megumi Inoue, 2012. "Persistent Problems in End-of-Life Planning Among Young- and Middle-Aged American Couples," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 68(1), pages 97-106.
    2. Deborah Carr & Dmitry Khodyakov, 2007. "End-of-Life Health Care Planning Among Young-Old Adults: An Assessment of Psychosocial Influences," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 62(2), pages 135-141.
    3. Wendy Loretto & Sarah Vickerstaff, 2015. "Gender, age and flexible working in later life," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 29(2), pages 233-249, April.
    4. Gordon L Clark & Janelle Knox-Hayes & Kendra Strauss, 2009. "Financial Sophistication, Salience, and the Scale of Deliberation in UK Retirement Planning," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 41(10), pages 2496-2515, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wouter De Tavernier & Marja Aartsen, 2019. "Old-Age Exclusion: Active Ageing, Ageism and Agency," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(3), pages 1-3.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Persefoni Zeri & Charalambos Tsekeris & Theodore Tsekeris, 2018. "Investigating the Macedonia Naming Dispute in the Twitter Era: Implications for the Greek Identity Crisis," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 127, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    2. Antigone Lyberaki & Platon Tinios, 2018. "Long-term Care, Ageing and Gender in the Greek crisis," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 128, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    3. Carr, Deborah & Kalousova, Lucie & Lin, Katherine & Burgard, Sarah, 2021. "Occupational differences in advance care planning: Are medical professionals more likely to plan?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 272(C).
    4. Yung-Ting Su, 2008. "Looking Beyond Retirement: Patterns and Predictors of Formal End-of-Life Planning Among Retirement Age Individuals," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 654-673, December.
    5. Angela Woosley & Sharon M. Danes & Marlene Stum, 2017. "Utilizing a Family Decision-Making Lens to Examine Adults’ End-of-Life Planning Actions," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 33-44, March.
    6. Spivack, April J. & Woodside, Arch G., 2019. "Applying complexity theory for modeling human resource outcomes: Antecedent configurations indicating perceived location autonomy and work environment choice," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 109-119.
    7. Philip Taylor & Catherine Earl & Christopher McLoughlin, 2016. "Contractual Arrangements and the Retirement Intentions of Women in Australia," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 19(3), pages 175-195.
    8. Rolison, Jonathan J & Hanoch, Yaniv & Wood, Stacey, 2017. "Saving for the future: Dynamic effects of time horizon," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 47-54.
    9. Deborah Carr, 2016. "Is Death “The Great Equalizer†? The Social Stratification of Death Quality in the United States," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 663(1), pages 331-354, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:socinc:v:7:y:2019:i:3:p:17-26. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.