The Political Economy of Care and Digital Innovation: Sociological and Social Policy Perspectives on Aal and Frailty Prevention

Population ageing, shifting intergenerational relations, and fiscal constraints place welfare states under sustained pressure to deliver high-quality care. This poster session brings the sociology of ageing and social policy to focus on the silver economy, covering Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) and Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) technologies as socially embedded objects that may extend independence and quality of life for older adults yet also introduce new dependencies.

At the intersection of welfare-state transformation and the datafication of everyday life, the session asks how early frailty detection through smart sensors reconfigures care work, professional roles, and the autonomy of older people at home – and whether such arrangements protect vulnerable cohorts against the social risks of the current polycrisis or deepen them.

Inspired by the EMA_FRAILTY project, the session welcomes posters using qualitative, quantitative, or mixed-methods approaches. Posters may address, among others:

• Distributive consequences and public-private boundaries of AAL and EMA in long-term care.
• “Ageing in place,” loneliness, and the renegotiation of family and community ties.
• Policy frameworks, reimbursement, and risks of austerity-driven substitution for human care.
• Gendered and intergenerational dimensions of informal care and restructured paid care work.
• Privacy and the citizenship of older adults and caregivers.
• Social inequalities and a “digital divide” in access to frailty prevention.

The poster format will enable sustained exchange during the designated slots, fostering dialogue on the social meanings, distributive effects, and governance of these technologies – both their potential to support older adults and the risks they may generate.