Marion Repetti has a PhD in sociology. She is a professor at the School of Social Work of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland Valais-Wallis where she is also head of the Social Work Research Institute. She studies social policies, ageing, inequalities and welfare states. She is particularly interested in ways that the globalisation of the life-course and of the capitalist economy challenge nation-based welfare states. In addition to her book, Les figures de la vieillesse, she has published in such international journals as Gerontology and Society, the Journal of Population Ageing, and Sociological Research Online. Toni Calasanti, PhD, is Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech, where she is also a faculty affiliate of both the Center for Gerontology. Her research on the intersections of age, gender and social inequalities has appeared in several journals in aging and sociology as well as in the books Gender, Social Inequalities, and Aging (2001), Age Matters: Re-Aligning Feminist Thinking (2006), and Nobody’s Burden: Lessons from the Great Depression on the Struggle for Old-Age Security (2011).  Recent explorations of the intersectional approach and of age, gender and sexuality appear in Handbook of Theories of Aging (2nd ed.) and the Handbook of Cultural Gerontology, and lay the foundation for her present research on same-sex partner caregiving. Professor Chris Phillipson is a sociologist and former Director of the Manchester Institute for Collaborative Research on Ageing (MICRA), based at the University of Manchester (UK). He has worked on a range of projects relating to social exclusion and ageing, work and retirement, globalisation and ageing, and age-friendly cities. He is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and a Past-President of the British Society of Gerontology. He has published a number of books in the field of ageing as well as numerous research papers. He is currently involved with research projects investigating the transition from work to retirement, isolation in later life, and developing age-friendly urban environments.