The Equality Bill will succeed only if there is a greater understanding of how inequalities develop in later life
Public service providers already have a duty to ensure that their policies are not discriminatory and this obligation will be strengthened in the Equality Bill.
The Bill will require the promotion of equality across nine grounds of discrimination, including, for the first time, age. It will also require public agencies to consider how to close socioeconomic inequalities. Addressing these new responsibilities around age will only be possible if we understand how socioeconomic factors can lead to disadvantage in later life.
Age and social background both have a significant impact on the public services older people might need to use, but to date there has been very little research in this area. Studies often lump older people together into a generic group of ‘over 65s’, ignoring the huge differences this contains.
There are very different needs and expectations for the well-off couple enjoying an active retirement; the widowed pensioner who has little savings and retired early for health reasons; and the person who needs to keep earning to support their dependants well into ‘normal’ retirement age.
The Equality & Human Rights Commission and Age Concern & Help the Aged have launched a joint programme, Just Ageing?, to consider fairness, equality and the life course. It has just published a short review of research carried out over the past decade, following a study by the London School of Economics. This reveals big gaps in our understanding of how class affects people’s use of public services in later life.
Studies generally look at either age or class and not at how age and class interact. There is reasonable evidence of class inequalities within health care although even here the studies are piecemeal. But a look at the evidence for how different groups of older people access services such as social care, housing, transport and technology reveals much larger gaps.
One is in the research into social care services. The review couldn’t find a single study on how social background affects experiences among people who pay for their own care. Yet this is a group that includes both millionaires and families who saved up to buy their home from the council.
Understanding these inequalities would help government to reform the social care system so that it is fairer for those who pay their own way as well as the few who get state funding.
The inequalities we identified can be put down to three general factors, each of which has a different implication for what should and what could be done about them by public services: differences in recognition or acceptance of the need for services; differences in awareness and knowledge about the availability of services; and differences in people’s ability to make themselves heard and to navigate service systems.
Further research is needed on whether the planning of services and the behaviours of frontline workers can exacerbate unequal experiences of services. If policy makers are to address these issues effectively, then they need to have a clear understanding of what causes the inequalities in the first place. There has to be a better understanding of how socioeconomic status and age interplay if public services are going to meet the needs of an ageing population.
By 2020, half of all adults in the UK will be aged 50 and over. By 2031, more than one in five people will be aged 65 and over. This next generation of retirees will also be the most diverse yet, with the widest range of lifestyles and the highest expectations of later life.
Public services will need to juggle competing demands, between narrowing inequalities in later life and responding to those best able to demand improved services. With spending cuts looming, equitable and intelligent commissioning of services for older people will be a huge dilemma for policy makers.
Andrew Harrop is acting charity director, Age Concern & Help the Aged; Andrea Murray is acting group director, strategy, Equality & Human Rights Commission
