Introduction: Ageing in times of the pandemic: Findings from the German Ageing Survey (DEAS)

Abstract

This book contains reports written by scientists from the German Centre of Gerontology (DZA) on the situation of people in the second half of life during the Covid-19 pandemic. The focus is on the first two waves of the pandemic, summer 2020 and winter 2020/2021, in Germany. The analyses are based on the German Ageing Survey (DEAS), a longitudinal study that has been running since 1996 and, hence, allows us to compare the pre-pandemic situation with the situation after the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. The findings concern people aged between 46 and 90 living in private households (residents of long-term care facili-ties could not be included in these analyses; see Kaspar et al. (2023) for more information on this topic). The book describes different facets of the living situ-ations of people in the second half of life, from work and income to subjective well-being and social support to societal participation. Although the book was originally written in German for the public discourse in Germany, we felt it was important to also publish our findings in English to contribute to international research discussions on ageing and policies for older people. In this introductory chapter, we describe (1) the epidemiological, social and political situation in Ger-many at the beginning of the pandemic, (2) the research questions that guided our reporting, (3) the German Ageing Survey (DEAS), which forms the basis of our empirical analyses, and (4) central findings of the chapters in this book.