Team Grant – More Years Better Lives (MYBL) 2020 – Application
Well-being, Health and Biomedical Discovery
Deadlines
Academic Unit: Inquire with your unit
Memorial Deadline: Tuesday 8th, September 2020
External Deadline: Tuesday 15th, September 2020
Description
SIRI will be offering support with application development for this opportunity. Prospective applicants are encouraged to contact Jennifer Stevens (v5js@mun.ca) early during the development process to discuss the services available to them.
Major demographic change is taking place across Canada and Europe. Rising life expectancy and falling fertility rates are changing family sizes and structures, and the length and nature of working life, while economic, political and environmental pressures are causing new patterns of migration into and within the continent.
These changes can increase inequality, bringing greater opportunities for some people, but fewer for others. Since high levels of inequality are damaging to both to individuals and society, the Joint Programming Initiative “More Years, Better Lives” seeks to identify who benefits and who loses from demographic change.
One key change is in the relationship between generations. Historical assumptions about mutual responsibilities and benefits may no longer be valid as we move from a three generation society to a four or five generation one.
Research Areas
This call is specifically interested in three aspects of inequality:
- Income and wealth: extending working life changes the distribution of income and wealth between generations. Income in later life is very unevenly distributed on the basis of previous employment, earnings, and the structure of different pension systems. Patterns of intergenerational inheritance change as people spend longer in retirement, and as the costs of social care impact on savings. Different national patterns of housing tenure also have differing implications for wealth and inheritance.
- Caring responsibilities: a high proportion of older people (especially, but not only women) undertake caring responsibilities, for parents, children, or partners. Caring can be emotionally rewarding, but when it makes heavy physical or emotional demands, it can have a seriously damaging effect on the mental and physical health, and on employment opportunities of the carer, especially where they are caring simultaneously for children and elders. A particular feature of caring is that needs can arise, and end, unexpectedly, giving little time for carers to plan and manage other commitments.
- Social and political participation: in many countries older people are more likely than young people to participate in formal political processes. However, many are disengaged, especially in later life, and some feel that their interests and concerns are underrepresented in political decision making, especially over issues which directly affect their lives. Older people are also more vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness, with less support from younger generations than in the past. The problem is exacerbated as friends and partners die, and mobility reduces. Sense of identity and security can also be challenged as neighbourhoods change, becoming younger, or possibly poorer. This is an issue both in urban environments and in rural areas, in declining communities (where the young have moved away), or without access to public or private transport.
- Additional information can be found at ResearchNet.