GENDER DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES AMONG OLDEST OLD ADULTS: A STUDY OF PERSONALITY SOCIAL SUPPORT AND DISABLEMENT

摘要

Surviving into late life has been shown to be a highly gendered process where there are substantially more centenarian women than men. Women may live longer than men, but do so at higher rates of disability. This research seeks to pinpoint what contributes to higher morbidity and disability among oldest-old adults. Based on the disablement process model (Verbrugge & Jette, 1994) this study included a sample of women (n =153) and men (n =55) from the Georgia Centenarian Study. We evaluated mean differences in variables of the disablement pathway (i.e., disease, pain, fatigue, and activities of daily living) by gender. Results indicate no mean gender differences in disease, fatigue, and adl impairment. But there were mean gender differences in vulnerability, t = -2.273, p <.05, pain, t = 1.993, p < .05, and iadl impairment, t = 2.635, p < .01. However, conflicting direct effect results of the main disablement pathway indicate that fatigue predicts iadl impairment for both women and men (β = -.42, p = < .001 and β = -.51, p = < .01, respectively). Further, social provisions were a statistically significant predictor of iadl for both women and men (β = .26, p = < .01 and β = .47, p = < .001, respectively). This research shows fatigue leads to iadl impairment in similar ways for oldest old adults in spite of mean differences leading up to disablement.