Michael Fine (Australia)

Michael Fine is Deputy-Director of the Centre for Research on Social Inclusion, and Associate Professor in Sociology at Macquarie University, Sydney. He teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the fields of sociology, social research, ageing, care and human services. His new book A Caring Society? Care and the Dilemmas of Human Services in the 21st Century was published by Palgrave (UK) in October 2006. Michael was Vice President of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Old Age (RC11) 2002-2006, and is a former President of the Australian Association of Gerontology (AAG) NSW Division. Michael has two research projects in the field of ageing on which he is currently working: The first concerns transnational care – migrants in the aged care work-force. The second addresses the topic of social isolation and the increasing trend towards people at all age groups, but especially amongst older people, to live alone.

Department of Sociology Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109 Australia Tel: +61-2-9850 8037/ 9569 0310 Fax: +61-2-9850 9533 Email: michael.fine@mq.edu.au

Liliana Gastron (Argentina)

Liliana Gastron is Director of the PhD Program on Social and Human Sciences, at the National University of Lujan, Argentina. She teaches at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in the field of ageing, family and gender studies. She is the current Vice-president of the Professional Council of Sociology (2006-2010). Liliana is part of the CEVI (Life Course International Research), coordinated by the Interfaculty Gerontological Centre at the University of Geneva, Switzerland (for more details about this research http://cig.unige.ch/recherches/cevi.html). She is also working on a book on social representations of ageing and the old age with diverse Argentine sociologists and psychologists, with a preface by Denise Jodelet. Her latest paper is a chapter entitled "HIV/AIDS and Violence: Implications for Elderly Women" in the book "The Multiple Faces of the Intersections Between HIV/AIDS and Violence Against Women", published by Development Connections, UNIFEM, Pan American Health Organization, Inter-American Commission of Women and the Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network, Washington, 2008.

Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, Universidad Nacional de Luján, CC 221,
(6700) Luján, Argentina, Tel. (54-2323) 423677, Fax (54-2323)425795, skype
lgastron, email gastron@fibertel.com.ar

Paul Higgs (United Kingdom)

Paul Higgs is Reader in Medical Sociology at University College London Medical School. He has researched and published in the fields of Medical Sociology, Social Policy and Social Gerontology. Paul Higgs (with Chris Gilleard) is the co-author of 'Cultures of Ageing: Self, Citizen and the Body' (Prentice Hall, 2000) and 'Contexts of Ageing: Class, Community and Cohort' (Polity, 2005). Since January 2005 he has been directing an AHRC/ESRC funded research project into consumption in later life, which involves colleagues from five other universities including Maria Evandrou, Chris Gilleard, Martin Hyde, Ian Jones, Christina Victor and Dick Wiggins. He is Joint Editor of the journal 'Social Theory & Health' and is also a member of the editorial board of 'Critical Public Health'. In 2005 he was awarded a visiting scholarship to James Cook University, Australia and an ESRC/SSRC international visiting fellowship to the universities of Trent and Toronto in Canada. He is currently working on a book on medical sociology and later life with Ian Jones.

2nd Floor, Wolfson Building 48 Riding House Street London W1W 7EY, UK Tel.: +44 (0)20 7679 9466 Fax: +44 (0)20 7679 9426 Email: p.higgs@ucl.ac.uk

Jaco Hoffman (South Africa)

Jaco Hoffman did post-graduate studies in the fields of Sociology, Socio-Gerontology and Theology at the Universities of North-West and Pretoria (South Africa). He is currently affiliated with the University of Pretoria as part-time lecturer in Social Gerontology as well as being a research fellow at the Oxford Institute of Ageing, University of Oxford. His research interests include intergenerational studies and he serves as editorial board member of the “International Journal of Intergenerational Relationships: programs, policy, and research” – The Haworth Press. Jaco is the current president of the South African Gerontological Association (SAGA) and it actively involved in various practical programmes and projects in the field of ageing in South Africa. He is furthermore part of the establishment and running of the African Research on Ageing Network (AFRAN), jointly coordinated by the Oxford Institute of Ageing and CODESRIA.

Oxford Institute of Ageing University of Oxford Manor Road Oxford OX1 3UQ, UK Tel: South Africa: +27 13 656 5372 Tel: United Kingdom: +44 1865 286197 Email: jaconda@iafrica.com

Ian Rees Jones (United Kingdom)

Ian Rees Jones is Professor of Sociology at Bangor University. He has published extensively in the field of medical sociology addressing health inequalities, chronic illness, and medical decision making. His research spans the historical sociology of health, medicine and welfare. His current research focus is on inequalities and social change and he leads an ESRC funded project utilising Multiple Correspondence Analysis to map changes in social space and lifestyles since the 1970s using the British Regional Heart Study. Recent books include Consumption and Generational Change, The rise of consumer lifestyles Transaction Publishers (2009) and Ageing in a consumer society: From passive to active consumption in Britain Policy Press (2008). He is also co-author with Paul Higgs of ‘Medical Sociology and old age: Towards a sociology of health in later life’ Routledge (2009).

School of Social Sciences, Bangor University, Bangor, LL57 2DG. Telephone: +44 (0) 1248 38 2232 Email: i.r.jones@bangor.ac.uk
 

Arvind K. Joshi (India)

Arvind K Joshi is Professor in the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sci-ences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. Dr Joshi has three books and several research papers/articles to his credit. His most recent book is on “Older Persons in India” (2006). He has presented several papers in the International Conferences at Fagerness (Norway), Montreal (Canada), Brisbane (Australia), Beijing (China) etc. His area of interests is Sociology of Ageing, Immigration and Social Change etc. He was Visiting Professor at Mahamukut Buddhist University (Bangkok.). He is the Co-convener of RC 19 (Age and Social Structure) of the Indian Sociological Society.

Department of Sociology Faculty of Social Sciences Banaras Hindu University Varanasi-221005 India Phone: +91-542-2570413 Email: arvindvns@satyam.net.in

László Kovács (Hungary)

László Kovács holds a university degree in computer engineering and in sociology. He received his PhD in Sociology from Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration (Corvinus University of Budapest) in 2002. He was principal investigator in at least 10 empirical researches focusing on deviant behaviours. In recent years he was preoccupied by the population dynamics of Hungary and the consequences of sub-replacement fertility and ageing in countries of European Union; he prepared as well a synthesis of demographic events of contemporary India. He joined International Sociological Association in 1995. Currently he is member also of the Committee for Demography of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungarian Sociological Association and Association for Scientific Research Rudolf Andorka. His research interest includes sociology of population, population ageing, fertility and mortality differentials, demographic and epidemiological aspects of deviant behavior, family sociology. He has published a number of articles and book chapters covering population dynamics, fertility, ageing, political attitudes, and epidemiological and family sociological background of deviant behavior. From 2003 until 2006 he was Bolyai-fellow of Hungarian Academy of Sciences; between 2007 and 2009 he is affiliated to the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (Japan).

Address for correspondence: Naszód utca 20 H–1202 Budapest Hungary;
Email: laszlo.kovacs.1966@gmail.com
 

Kwok Hong-kin (Hong Kong)

Dr. KWOK, Hong-kin is assistant professor in Sociology, Lingnan University, Hong Kong. He is a graduate of the Sociology Department of The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. His research interests are family care, family change and education change. He is now centre fellow of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Ageing Studies of this University. He has published 6 books and many journal papers.

Department of Politics and Sociology Lingnan University, Tuen Mun Hong Kong Telephone: (852) 2616-7188 Fax: (852) 2891-7940 Email: kwokhk@LN.edu.hk

P.K.B. Nayar (India) Prof. (Dr.)

P K. B. Nayar, formerly Chair, Dept. of Sociology, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences and Director of Centre for Womens Studies, University of Kerala, Trivandrum, India; receipient of Fulbright, US Inter University, Carnegie and Ford Foundation Fellowships; also, French Government's Award for Internationally Re-nowned Scientists, Consultant to UNFAO, ILO, WHO and World Bank, Chairman of Kerala State Education Advisory Board, Consultant to USAID, India. Member of RC 11 since 1974 onwards, organised two Post Congress sessions for ISA, 1986 and 1996, author of 7 books, including the Best Seller of 1983 (Sociology in India - Problems and Promises, New Delhi, Associated Publishing) and over 70 articles, including several on aging. Working on aging since 1982, founded India's first NGO Centre for Gerontological Studies in Trivandrum India in 1983, Chairman of the Centre since that time, organised several national level and one international conference on aging, consultant to Government of Kerala on aging, consultant to several agencies on aging India.

Centre for Gerontological Studies Kochulloor Trivandrum 695 011 India Email: pkbnayar@rediffmail.com

Ronica Rooks (United States)

Ronica N. Rooks, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Kent State University. Prior to this appointment she was a W. K. Kellogg postdoctoral fellow in health disparities at the University of Michigan and a postdoctoral fellow in geriatric epidemiology at the National Institute on Aging. She graduated from the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland at College Park with concentrations in demography and social stratification. Her research focuses on explanations for racial and socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in the health of African Americans, particularly focusing on neighborhood SES and demographics to examine heart disease and physical functioning outcomes among the elderly; perceptions of unfair treatment on hypertension, mental health, and health care utilization (HCU) among adults; and geographic variation in adult patients' perceived quality of and access to health care on HCU.

329 Merrill Hall Department of Sociology Kent State University Kent, Ohio 44242 United States of America Tel: +1-330-672-9809 Fax: +1-330-672-4724 Email: rrooks@kent.edu

Helene Thomas (France)

Helene Thomas is a professor of Political Science at the Institut d’études politiques (Institute of Political Studies) of Aix en Provence. Before that she was Senior Lecturer in Political Sociology at the Faculty of Law, Political and Social Sciences of Paris 13’s university (1993-2006) and also associate researcher in CSU (Culture and Urban Societies Research Centre). Since her PhD (“Processes of political and social desocialization among the elderly after giving up work”) she’s been studying both the social effects of aging on social and political status of people belonging to the working classes and middle classes and the social, economical and medical policies toward these groups in France. As a Research Adviser at the Studies and Survey’s Direction of the French Minis-try of Health and Social Affairs (2000-2004) she worked on and contributed to the analysis of quantitative surveys from The National institute of Economics Sta-tistics (INSEE), conducted to assess the epidemiology of disabilities of elderly in institutions and in the community. Helene also conducted several qualitative re-ports for the French minister of Elderly [“Reactions of elderly to abuses caused by their careers” in 2004, “Quality of life and burden of very old disabled people and their helpers” in 2001]. As a psychoanalyst (first attached to the Geriatrics and Extended Care Unit of Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris, 2002-2005), she focuses her research both on the way of life of Alzheimer’s suffering persons and on the increase of the geriatrics and nursing devices in the care of elderly.

I.E.P d'Aix-en-Provence 25, rue Gaston de Saporta 13625 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 1 France tel +33 6 85 86 30 01 Email: helene.thomas4@wanadoo.fr

Virpi Timonen (Ireland)

A Finnish national, I was educated from the age of 16 in the UK, first in an international school in Wales and subsequently at the Universities of Durham and Oxford. I wrote my doctorate at Magdalen College Oxford on the politics of welfare state reform in Finland and Sweden in the aftermath of the 1990s economic recession. This has been published as Restructuring the Welfare State: Globalization and Social Policy Reform in Finland and Sweden (Globalization and Welfare series, Edward Elgar, 2003). My doctorate and early research career focused on welfare state reform in the comparative context. In 2001-2005 I participated in a seven-country comparative project funded by the European Union (Framework Five), analysing the salient changes in these countries’ social policies and their causes. This work resulted in a number of publications, including a chapter on new directions in the social policies of the Nordic countries in a book published by Oxford University Press (New Risks, New Welfare: The Transformation of the European Welfare State, 2004) and a chapter on the long-term care of older per-sons in the EU in Ideas and Welfare State Reform in Western Europe (Palgrave 2005). Since 2003, my work has focused on ageing, and the care of older persons in particular. With the help of a grant from the Irish Research Council on Humani-ties and Social Sciences, I undertook a comparison of cash-for-care policies in Ireland, the Netherlands, Finland the UK in 2003-04 (resulting inter alia in an article in Ageing & Society titled ‘Care Revolutions in the Making’, 2006, co-authors Suzanne Cahill and Janet Convery, 2006). Since 2005, I have been the Director of the Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre in my School in Trinity. Our first projects, an analysis of domiciliary care of older persons in Dublin and a three-country comparison of home care policies (in Denmark, Germany and the State of California, US) are nearing their completion. Current work also includes pre-testing and piloting questions on social support and networks, to be included in the first Irish longitudinal study of ageing (TILDA). In Jan. 2006 I was appointed Associate Chairperson of Trinity Consortium on Ageing.

Dr. Virpi Timonen Director, Social Policy and Ageing Research Centre Associate Chairperson, Trinity Consortium on Ageing School of Social Work and Social Policy Trinity College Dublin Dublin 2 Ireland Tel. direct line: + 353 1 896 2950 Fax: + 353 1 671 2262 E-mail: timonenv@tcd.ie

Lucie Vidovicova (Czech Republic)

Mgr. Lucie Vidovicova¡, Ph.D. is a sociologist and works as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Research on Social
Reproduction and Integration at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic and at the Research Institute for Labour and Social Affairs. She has long term research interest in the sociology of ageing and issues such as ageism and age discrimination, attitudes of the population to ageing and active ageing. Besides research for national Czech funding bodies, she has been involved in several EU research projects. She also works as a consultant on implementation projects of different govermental bodies and cooperates with non-governmental organizations in the field of senior advocacy and age mainstreaming.

Lucie Vidovicova, Institute for Research on Social Reproduction and
Integration; Faculty of Social Studies; Masaryk University; Jostova
10, 60200 Brno, Czech Rep. Tel: +420 602 515 886 Email: vidovicova@
fss.muni.cz(mailto:vidovicova@fss.muni.cz) , lucie.vidovic@seznam.cz
(mailto:lucie.vidovic@seznam.cz)

John B. Williamson (United States)

John Williamson is a Professor of Sociology at Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. At BC his primary appointment is in the Department of Sociology, but he is also affiliated with the Center on Retirement Research at Boston College and with the Center on Aging and Work. The focus of his current research is on comparative pension policy. This has included quite a bit of work assessing the pros and cons of funded individual accounts as part of a multi-pillar pension scheme. A related theme has been work on the NDC model (sometimes referred to as the non-financial defined contribution model and sometimes referred to as the notional defined contribution model) as an alternative to a funded defined contribution pillar. He has also been doing work on non-contributory old-age security schemes for developing countries. His recent work has included articles on pension policy reform in China, Russia, Chile, and a variety of other non-OEDC nations. He has also written quite a bit about the debates over the proposed partial privatization of Social Security in the USA and about framing the generational equity debate. His most current work deals with labor force participation rates among older workers in Japan.

Department of Sociology McGuinn 424 Boston College Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 Tel: 1 617 552 8530 Fax: 1 617 552 4283 E-mail jbw@bc.edu