Centre for Ageing Better
Understanding Experiences of Ageism
and Ageing
Challenge
Ageism is the most widespread form of discrimination – 1 in 3 experience it. Ageism affects people of all ages, but its damaging impact is often felt most strongly among those in older age.
The Centre for Ageing Better (Ageing Better) is an independent charitable foundation which advocates for a society where everyone gets to enjoy later life. They are embarking on a new public-facing campaign designed to tackle the widespread use of derogatory and harmful stereotypes – what they call ‘everyday ageism’ - in the pursuit of a more positive and realistic understanding about later life across the country. By challenging negative stereotypes about what it means to be older, the hope is we can begin to reframe the concept of what it means to be ‘old’ towards a more positive and fulfilling stage of life.
Basis Social was commissioned to design a programme of research to support the Ageing Better team in their campaign design journey; specifically, understanding how attitudes to ageing and older people manifest, amongst who, and how these could be changed for the better through the campaign.
Approach
We used an iterative, three-phased mixed methods approach, working in close consultation with the Ageing Better team throughout.
First, we grounded ourselves in older people’s lived experiences through 6 focus groups with people aged 50+. This was valuable in illustrating what a challenging issue ageism is to address. This was supplemented by a phase of semiotics to help us identify and analyse the unconscious root causes of public perceptions around ageing. This early exploratory stage meant we were able to work with Ageing Better to shift the focus of the remaining research to look more closely at wider attitudes towards ageing and negative stereotypes held about ‘old people’.
Second, we conducted a nationally representative online survey with over 2,000 members of the general public, supplemented by ‘CATI’ (telephone) interviewing to ensure we heard from digitally excluded audiences. This provided the basis for a segmentation analysis to understand how the population differs in terms of attitudes towards ageing and older people – so helping us narrow down audiences to target through the campaign.
Third, we targeted the two segments of most interest (in terms of potential campaign impact) and conducted 20 in-depth interviews in order to unpick what is driving negative attitudes and how we could start to challenge these, underpinned by a behavioural framework (drawing on both the Theory of Planned Behaviour and Transtheoretical Model of Behaviour Change).
Throughout the research, we engaged with a small Lived Experience Advisory Group comprised of members of the public aged 50 and over to stress test research materials. We also shared findings and gathered feedback through 3 interactive virtual sessions with members of the UK Network of Age-friendly Communities. This is a growing national movement affiliated to the World Health Organisation’s Global Network for Age-friendly Cities and Communities.
Impact
Our work is informing the next stage of Ageing Better’s campaign design, offering clarity about which audiences to target and with what messaging. The campaign is set to go live later in 2023 so keep an eye out for it!
Get in touch
