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.

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 design policies that minimize its societal impact. In this systematic review, we gathered and summarized empirical studies exploring the key determinants of ageism against older people.

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.

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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.