Editorial: Culture and Aging. Exploring older generations through the lenses of shifting patterns

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The aging population has become a crucial demographic trend worldwide, as it poses both economic and sustainable challenges to governments and societies. And, ostensibly, this unprecedented increase in the senior demographic is currently unfolding in East African nations, primarily, due to substantial advancements in the healthcare system and the commendable support and promotion of education within the region. In this context, the current article examines the relationship between the aging population, ecological footprint, consumption of renewable energy, governmental healthcare expenditures, trade, and urbanization within the context of the Republic of Djibouti. To investigate the data and explore the dynamics and interactions among variables, a comprehensive approach was employed, which involved utilizing an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, a Granger causality test, and both an impulse response function (IRF) and variance decomposition (VD) analyses. According to the ARDL findings, urbanization has a positive relationship with an aging population. In contrast, the health sector expenditures demonstrated a negative association with the elderly population in Djibouti. This indicates an alarming scenario where government spending on elderly care fails to effectively meet the specific needs of seniors due to insufficient funding, bureaucratic inefficiencies, and inadequate program implementation. Consequently, this leads to a significant gap in coverage for a large portion of the elderly population. On the other hand, it is worth noting that the well-being of the elderly population in Djibouti sees only a slight improvement influenced by the trade performance variable. Nonetheless, this positive impact is somewhat hindered by the lack of sufficient financial inclusion measures that should have ideally been driven by trade-related activities. Moreover, the study’s IRF and VR highlight a positive shock between the consumption of renewable energy and the well-being of the elderly population. Nevertheless, it is of utmost importance to recognize the detrimental impact of the ecological footprint, which significantly undermines the overall well-being of the aging population. Therefore, policymakers must carefully weigh and benefit the simultaneous effect of the advantages of renewable energy consumption on the environment, and on the well-being of the elderly population. It is also essential to emphasize the need to devise more inclusive policies that can comprehensively address this issue and improve the welfare of the elderly demographic.
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Charting the Course for Sustainable Aging: Socio-Environmental and Economic Impacts on Djiboutian Elderly Population

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The study of seniors’ perception of the use of technology is the main topic of this article. This is relevant because of the topicality and the need to understand how active aging and the use of new technology are realized in a seniors’ dedicated program in Romania. In the literature review section, the following concepts are presented: the role of technology in everyday life, the types of technologies seniors use, the meaning of information and communication technology concept, and understanding the concept of loneliness and seniors’ needs. The second section of the article consists of qualitative research using based on a case study (in-depth interviews and participatory observation) on the <italic>Telefonul Vârstnicului</italic> Program (Senior People Phone Line) in Romania. The purpose of the research is to identify the seniors’ needs, faced problems, reached needs, and the qualities a social worker should have. The main findings of the research emphasize the fact that senior citizens are guided to various state institutions, providing them with useful, verified, and official information. Older people face several problems, both financial and medical, but they also need to communicate to relieve loneliness and meet new people. The digital skills of the elderly are quite limited but have been growing in recent years.
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Seniors and the Use of New Technologies: Loneliness and Support Networks

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Research on information and communication technology (ICT) and studies on aging revealed that, despite initial assumptions of technophobia among older adults they actually embrace ICT when perceived as beneficial for their specific needs, for example, to stay connected with loved ones. Considering the current technological era and the transformative impact of social media and the new communication and information devices upon the way generations consume information, it is only logical for research to focus on exploring the unique characteristics of the information used within each group. In addition, there is a scarcity of data coming from national statistics regarding the prevalent utilization of ICT among older adults, coupled with a growing significance of exploring generational media consumption in light of their unique historical and cultural context. Therefore, the current paper exposes the usage narratives and particularities of older media generations in Romania, based on qualitative research conducted in February-July 2021 as a part of a larger doctoral project. 18 respondents aged 52 to 79, 8 males and 10 females, took part in 17 family interviews exploring the complex dynamic between modern technology use and the historical and cultural space occupied by different generations. Results show that these two generations prefer the technology that appeared during their formative years and matured while the generations also matured and use the technology that appeared after their formative years only because of external motivation (working environment, keeping in touch with loved ones that use a different technology).
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Narrative of Technology Use from Older Media Generations in Romania

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The tourism industry is one of the most successful and offering industries considering the variations it has, and that is universally addressed to everyone, regardless of age, nationality, or gender. In this century, tourism for seniors has expanded at a significantly accelerated pace globally. Services for senior tourists are increasingly diversified globally, as well as in Romania, where this research is developed. Travel agencies are creating packages and special offers tailored to domestic and international seniors for circuits or pilgrimages. Nowadays, being a senior is no longer a shortcoming. They benefit from increased attention from travel agencies that provide more advantageous prices. This article deals with three tourism segments: cultural tourism, creative tourism, and religious tourism focusing on seniors. The purpose of the article is to find out, through the questionnaire method, the type of tourism practiced by senior Romanian tourists and the attraction factors in choosing the city of Iași as a tourist destination. The results of the study are relevant in that the tourism practiced by the senior respondents is pilgrimage tourism. Almost half of them chose religious tourist attractions as motivating factors to travel to Iași, and a notable event in this regard is the annual pilgrimage to Saint Parascheva. According to the questionnaire results, cultural tourism is practiced harmoniously with religious tourism. Therefore, the study contributes to the tourism field by extending our current knowledge of senior tourism and has implications for better organizing their travel.
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Cultural, Creative, and Religious Senior Travel: Evidence and Research on the City of Iași

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Culture. Society. Economy. Politics

Call for papers December 2023 Deadline extension to November 1, 2023  One cannot study Culture without exploring its interdependent and intersecting social, economic and political ecosystems. For culture encourages both inter- and trans-disciplinary studies, contributing not only to the better understanding of the phenomena investigated, but also proposing approaches leading to the development of cultural and creative sectors and of contemporary society itself.  Among the main lines of exploration we encourage are:   the development of the cultural sector, stressing the current challenges and trends;  the cultural dimension of humans, communities and societies;  the sociology of culture and knowledge;  the economic dimension of culture and its role in sustainable development;  culture and wellbeing;  the management of cultural organizations;  the cultural dimension of for-profit and not-for-profit organizations;  the politics of culture, as well as the use of culture in political contexts.   We welcome other lines of investigation as well, as long as they are in align with the main scope of the magazine.  The journal has a practical focus, encouraging submissions to be practice-oriented and relevant for the contemporary world. Not only academics, but also practitioners are invited to submit, as well as to analyze the specific situation and successful initiatives in emerging countries.  Archiving  Sciendo archives the contents of this journal in Portico - digital long-term preservation service of scholarly books, journals and collections.  Plagiarism Policy  The editorial board is participating in a growing community of Similarity Check System's users in order to ensure that the content published is original and trustworthy. Similarity Check is a medium that allows for comprehensive manuscripts screening, aimed to eliminate plagiarism and provide a high standard and quality peer-review process. 