School of Social and Political Science

Content

Increasing life expectancy means that most people live well beyond the Statutory retirement age in the UK and similarly wealthy nations. In response, a ‘Third Age’ has been proposed as a phase of life that is freed from responsibility, bringing opportunities for self-fulfilment through participation in leisure activities, volunteering and travel. At the same time, longstanding pessimistic narratives view growing proportions of population in retirement as a problem and a threat, an unsustainable drain on the working-age population and directly responsible for many of the social and economic challenges those at the working ages face. 

In this lecture I argue that both narratives are problematic for a number of reasons, most notably because they ignore the stark inequalities in the experiences of the ‘Third Age’. Furthermore, in the context of a decade of crises, narratives that neglect inequalities lend support to policies that exacerbate and concentrate insecurity in many areas of later life including housing, care provision, relationships and social participation. I will also make a broader methodological point, that rigorous and theoretically-informed analyses of quantitative social data are crucial for our understanding of opportunities and disadvantages in later life. I argue that as a society, today more than ever, we need to provide reliable numbers on the social world around us, and a citizenship capable of understanding and debating what these numbers do and do not show.

Altogether this lecture evidences inequalities in ageing and argues for intellectual and political perspectives that centre understanding of, and solutions to, precarity in later life.

Introduction

Professor John Devaney's introduction

Good evening everyone. It's always terrible to sort of break up the conversations, which are ongoing, but hopefully it'll be an opportunity after tonight's inaugural lecture for you to catch up with friends, old and new. Old is probably very appropriate, given what we're here to talk about this evening. My name is John Devaney, and I've a great pleasure and honour of being the Head of the School of Social and Political Science. As some of you will have heard me say before, one of the best bits of the job is actually chairing these inaugural lectures. An inaugural lecture is an opportunity for somebody who's either arrived into the university and been appointed as a professor, or somebody like Alan, who's risen to the position of a personal chair, to actually introduce themselves to the wider community. And that's both the community within the university in terms of students, and other scholars. But also, it's a public lecture, so, it's for anybody who might be interested in finding out what happens within this institution, when we talk about research and teaching and learning and education. I'm absolutely delighted that I have the opportunity to introduce Alan’s inaugural lecture, because when I arrived in the University back in 2018, Alan was one of the first people I met. And for any of you who know Alan, and you will know that when Alan breezes into your office, or into your life, it's like a ray of sunshine arriving. Not only is he full of positivity, and that's what it generates from him to me, but also that sense of actually somebody who's incredibly collegial, and wants to be beside somebody. He wears his intellect, and his expertise so very lightly and yet is endowed with enormous expertise and skills. It's been a real pleasure to be alongside Alan all of this time and to see and to learn from him, but also to see how his career has developed. 

In terms of this evening, the structure is Allen is going to speak for about 40 minutes, on the topics that we have tonight. Later life, a third age of opportunity -but for whom? And some of us in this room, are saying this is as much personal as it is intellectual, given the stage of life that we're at. And as Alan said, what we're talking about when we talked about later life, is defined in some circles as when you're 50 and above, which got me into great trouble in an earlier stage in my career when I was doing research on older women's experiences with domestic abuse. And then we had to get into defining what do we mean by older women, and, there were plenty of good colleagues who gave very sensible advice at that stage, but it's a really important topic that we'll be focusing on this evening. Alan's very open to taking questions at the end of the presentation. And then after we've tortured him a little bit with some really hard questions, you're all welcome to join us in the foyer of the Chrystal Macmillan building. We'll be serving some light refreshments. And it's also an opportunity to compliment Alan on his presentation, and also just to catch up with him and other people this evening. So hopefully most of you are able to join us this evening. A particular welcome to members of Alan's family who are here. His parents have joined us, and we're delighted that you've been able to come. And also his wife, Nissa, and also the three children, Freya, Sander and Laurie. So thank you very much for taking the time to come along this evening. Yeah. You know, now you get a chance to find out what your daddy does. Whenever he says he's working very, very hard. And we would all agree that he does work very, very hard. 

Alan was promoted to his personal chair, and he's Professor of Social Research and Inequality, and he took up that chair in August of 2023. He's been at the university since 2017, when he was appointed here as a senior lecturer, having previously worked at the University of Saint Andrews. And he's also worked at University of Manchester, and got degrees from the University of Manchester and the University of Wales in Swansea. So somebody who's from Northern Ireland, I still have to find out why he hasn't actually moved to Northern Ireland at some stage, on his journey around the British Isles, but I hope he doesn't. Not because it's I want to detract anything from Belfast - we're very happy for you to be here. Alan started off work as a teacher before he moved into academia. And there's something about the fact that we have a number of people in the room who were teachers in the past, before moving into academia, and something that that brings in terms of being in a classroom, thinking about learning and education and thinking about teaching, which sometimes says it's as much about crowd control as it is about actual education. And he may need to use former skills for the crowd that are in the room this evening. He gained his PhD in 2009 from, the Cathie Marsh Centre for Social Research at the University of Manchester. You've only been here a handful of years, but during all of your time you've been here, not only have you been doing work that's been the leading, you've also been an excellent citizen. You were director of Edinburgh Q-Step. You then were the founding director of the School of Social and Political Science’s Research Training Centre, and you've now moved on to become the deputy director for the Scottish Graduate School for Social Science and I know one or two of your colleagues from there are here this evening as well. 

In terms of your work, it's not just been something that's been of interest and of benefit to academia.

You've also had very important positions where you've been advising both office and national statistics and National Records Scotland about major surveys such as the census. And I think that shows the real world applicability of what you do own. And one of the things that sort of alluded in your application or not, your application in your CV was about the importance of trying to ensure that in, outside the University that things are being done... that policy and practice circles are informed by, I think you put here, rigorous and theoretically informed analysis of quantitative social data and trying to think about how we use that in ways which inform not only on an understanding of complex issues, but also how we might respond. 

Outside of work, you've got many interests. You're a keen climber, I believe, and also you support Sheffield United. And so therefore, you've got our commiserations for all of that. We're really pleased to be able to host, this inaugural lecture this evening, Alan. And we look forward to hearing what you've got to say. And at the end, we'll open it up for any questions or comments. So can we please show our appreciation to Alan.