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Even in the best of times and in the best of places, older persons often need a hand, but older women are more likely to face a predicament where they need more than casual assistance. They need special attention and protection.

Older women are much more likely than men to be poor. During a lifetime of work at lower paying jobs - or even jobs that are unpaid, such as household work - they often find themselves with little or no means of support. They are unlikely to have a regular pension.

While older women need some assistance from society they often have much to contribute. With the skills that they have acquired over a lifetime of work,they can play an irreplaceable role in the family and the community - when they are allowed to contribute. Making the most of their skills can only benefit their community and society as a whole.

Gender, ageing and poverty

The feminization of the older population is a global phenomenon. In almost all countries, women live longer than men - in some cases much longer. Today, there are 328 million women aged 60 and over and only 265 million men. As the population grows older, the difference becomes more pronounced. And all too often, the older they become the poorer they become.

Women have traditionally had fewer opportunities to earn and save. More often than not, they are paid less well than men for the same work, and they are more likely to find work in the informal sector. When they do work in the paid labour force, their participation is likely to be shorter and more irregular, as they may interrupt their careers to fulfil family obligations or to provide care to an older family member. Because women earn less than men, when they do receive pensions, the pensions may provide less.

And unfortunately for women, social security - which is supposed to provide security for older persons - was created for the benefit of wage earners and usually does not recognize the value of household work, child-rearing and elder care.

Cultural practices and legal systems also discriminate against women in many countries. Women often have a lower social status and less access to property and inheritance than men. Under some systems, daughters inherit only half as much as their brothers, and mothers inherit even less. In some places, when a woman becomes a widow, she may retain custody of her children, while the legal guardianship passes to a male relative, and with it the control of the children's assets and property.

An extreme form of discrimination occurs when, due to local catastrophes, accidents, crop failure or poor weather, an older woman may be accused of witchcraft. Then she may be ostracized, chased away, beaten, or even killed.

Support systems for older persons

Most societies in developing countries rely on traditional family support systems - which most often means women - for elder-care, while in developed countries there are usually formal pension and care systems. Yet the rapid ageing of the population, together with the declining availability of family caregivers, is straining care systems for older people everywhere.

Ageing in developing countries is occurring much more rapidly than it did in the developed countries, with the result that within a relatively short period of time there will be fewer younger people available to care for many older people. By 2030, more than 75 per cent of the world's older population will live in developing countries.

At the same time, the traditional values that underpin those family support systems are themselves under pressure and are beginning to change. In traditional societies, older persons have control over certain resources and are viewed as the guardians of wisdom.

Consequently, they are treated with great respect and occupy positions of status. But modernization and industrialization are causing those traditional value systems to changer, with more value placed on economic success and formal education than on age and wisdom. As the status of older men and women in traditional societies erodes, and with fewer caregiver available, the traditional support systems may prove insufficient, if not supplemented with assistance and support.

Urbanization and migration are also weakening the traditional support systems. Young people often leave older family members behind when they migrate to the cities. Once in the cities, young women often go to work as well, and are no longer available to care for older parents at home.

In developed countries, the majority of older person do not live with their children or otherwise depend on their families for support. Most of them live with their spouses and most depend on formal pension systems for their financial support. But once again, women are at a distinct disadvantage. When a male spouse dies, a widow may not receive as much financial support in terms of social security or pension as her husband did. She may, however, outlive him by many years. And she is much more likely to experience isolation and marginalization.

When care is needed from family members, it is usually other women who provide it. Women in all societies are expected to provide unpaid care-giving labour. In the developed world in particular, this can trap women in a vicious circle: the fact that they are expected to provide unpaid labour can interfere with career advancement and lead to lower pensions, as they may need to leave the workplace intermittently. Their resulting lower pensions or financial support will eventually then leave them more dependent on other family members, usually women, for care. Without government or social intervention, the cycle continues.

Health and well-being

Men and women suffer different health problems as they age. Men tend to suffer more from acute illnesses that require hospitalization, while women often suffer more from chronic diseases, that, while not life threatening, may be disabling. Health care delivery is generally geared more towards acute care, and often ignores the needs of older women who might benefit more from home healthcare than hospitalisation or going to live in a nursing home.

In some developed societies, medical coverage may provide for hospital stays and for institutional care in a nursing home, but is very limited in terms of home health-care assistance which is much less expensive. Without subsidized home health care assistance, if a woman's family cannot afford home health care, there may be no other option but to move her to a nursing home, at vastly greater expense for the state.

The AIDS epidemic has greatly intensified the care-giving burden of older women, who are forced to serve as substitute parents for their children's children. But the social systems have not yet had sufficient time to develop support for these caregiver, who often lack the financial and physical resources they need to raise yet another family.

Compounding the problem, the adult children that would have cared for them in their older years are gone.

Helping older women help society

Older women have always made an important contribution - as caregiver, counsellors, mentors, producers, policy-makers, fund-raisers, historians, confidants, and grandparents or great-grandparents.

While their contributions remain significant - if there were a price tag attached, it would be substantial - the situation of many older women, especially the poor and disadvantaged, has remained invisible to the policymakers of the developed and developing countries.

The gender dimensions of ageing require special consideration when plans, policies and programmes aimed at addressing the needs of older persons are developed. While the issues confronted by older women have been on the agenda of the international community for the last 25 years at United Nations conferences, the issue has gained more visibility internationally over the last decade.

Courtesy: United Nations Information Centre

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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