Nir Fulman (p), Umut Türk, Yulia Grinblat, Kathrin Foshag, Armağan Teke, Lloyd Marina Toger, Alexander Zipf, Sven Lautenbach

María Vera-Cabello

Routing systems can help older adults overcome environmental barriers to walking, supporting their community engagement and autonomy. Additionally, the paths generated by these systems can be used for pedestrian accessibility analysis, contributing to 15-minute city initiatives. By identifying factors that influence older adults’ path selection, route choice research can guide the development of empirically grounded systems that support age-friendly routing and accessibility. In recent years, interest in pedestrian route choice has grown, yet little attention has been devoted to older adults’ distinct route choice behaviors. We propose a framework for studying route choice in older adults based on a scoping review of the literature on the topic.

We identify critical methodological gaps in studying route choice among older pedestrians and offer guidance to enhance future research. First, most route choice studies focus on functional, point-to-point trips, employing discrete choice models based on utilitarian theory, where path length is minimized. However, route choice research on older adults generally centers on leisure trips starting and ending at home, with an emphasis on qualitative approaches. To bridge this gap, we propose a utility maximization approach for leisure trips that accommodates non-linear evaluations of path length and incorporates other relevant factors.

Second, almost all of the existing studies treat older adults as a homogeneous group, despite the diverse motoric, sensory, and cognitive declines that influence walking capability. We recommend stratifying older adults by age and functional states, based on gerontological and walkability research, to generate more nuanced insights.
Third, most route choice studies use general walkability frameworks that focus on broad environmental attributes, often overlooking issues specific to older adults—such as street signage and pedestrian obstacles. We advocate for a mixed-methods approach, combining qualitative methods to identify relevant attributes with quantitative analysis.
Fourth, relevant attributes like sidewalk quality are often manually audited, which is time-consuming and prone to bias. We propose a set of automated data sources and methods, including street view imagery and deep learning, to enhance data collection on environmental factors for older adults' route choice studies.

Lastly, because older adults’ travel diaries can be difficult to obtain, existing studies often rely on labor-intensive methods—such as walk-along interviews—which typically result in small participant samples. To address these limitations, we introduce a novel virtual environment for immersive virtual walks, enabling controlled stated preference experiments with larger participant pools. We then evaluate this new approach against established methods.

Miguel Puente-Ajovin, Marcos Sanso-Navarro, María Vera-Cabello (p)

Alexandre Nunes Almeida

This paper investigates the factors shaping the distribution of city sizes within nations. Using globally consistent definitions of human settlements, we calculate their sizes based on gridded population and nighttime lights data. To address model uncertainty in identifying robust determinants of variations in the degree of concentration across countries, we employ Bayesian model averaging techniques. Our results show that international trade, democratization, and natural resource revenues are strongly correlated with the estimated slope parameters derived from rank-size regressions at the national level. While the Polity score and openness to trade are positively linked to a more even distribution of population and lights, the share of income from natural resources shows the opposite relationship. These results underscore the potential roles of openness and institutional frameworks in promoting more balanced national urban structures.

Alexandre Nunes Almeida (p), Carlos Roberto Azzoni , Tatiane Almeida Menezes, Ana Luiza Neves de Holanda Barbosa

Michael Cameron

The rapid demographic transition in Brazil has led to a significant aging of the population, resulting in a shift towards an age distribution pattern similar to those seen in developed countries. This structural and irreversible transformation highlights the need to understand the consumption patterns of the growing population aged 60 and over, including emerging family configurations, such as the increasing number of children and grandchildren living with elderly parents. Additionally, a significant portion of the elderly's budget is allocated to health services and pharmaceuticals for treating chronic-degenerative diseases, which can affect the financial stability of the entire family.
The objective of this study is to examine the cost of living for elderly families across 13 Brazilian metropolitan regions. The analysis uses expenditure data from 58,039 households collected between July 2017 and July 2018, along with prices from the Consumer Price Index, covering 264 consumer goods. To estimate comparative costs and assess purchasing power parity, we employ the Country Product Dummy model, a robust methodology for evaluating regional price differences.
Our main results reveal that elderly household heads generally face higher living costs than their non-elderly counterparts across the majority of the cities studied. Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, and Curitiba are the most expensive cities for elderly individuals, while Salvador, Fortaleza, and Belem/Recife have the lowest costs. In addition, specific expenditure categories significantly increase the financial cost for the elderly population, with food prices particularly high in Brasilia and Sao Paulo, elevated transportation costs in Belo Horizonte, and substantial healthcare expenses in Goiania.
These findings are crucial for regional economic research and public policy, as they provide a more precise understanding of inequality by accounting for variations in the cost of living between metropolitan areas. As Brazil’s demographic transition accelerates, policymakers, businesses, and social programs must adapt to address the needs of the aging population. A better understanding of the financial challenges faced by elderly individuals also helps map regional disparities and supports strategies aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals to improve well-being and quality of life for this growing population.

Michael Cameron (p)

Nir Fulman

The structural ageing of the population is one of the key global trends of the 21st Century. The importance of population ageing has gained prominence because of a growing recognition that future populations will include an increasing share of older people, raising potentially important resource implications for national and local governments alike. In this paper, I summarise past, present, and future measures of population ageing for Australia at the regional (state and capital city) level. I supplement this with a summary of past measures of population ageing at the Local Government Area (LGA) level. This exercise highlights two key facts, that are similar to those shown in previous research for New Zealand. First, all subnational areas have been, and are projected to continue, ageing. Second, not all subnational areas are ageing at the same rate. Moreover the ranking of subnational areas in terms of past, present, and future ageing depends on the measure of structural ageing that is employed. In particular, I highlight the differences between ‘traditional’ measures of structural ageing, such as the median age or the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over, and a new class of axiomatically-consistent structural ageing measures developed by Cameron (2022). Policymakers and other decision-makers should remain cognisant of the importance of subnational population ageing.