Gender and Aging. Demographic Dimensions. International Brief

摘要

The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Womenin 1995 prepared a platform which provides an analysis of obstacles facing the worlds women, including older women, and outlines a series of policy solutions for removing these obstacles. Conference documents emphasize a life-cycle approach to the understanding of womens status, recognizing the importance of age and the relationship between life course events and well-being in later life. Improvements in health, education, and economic security will have an enormous impact on how women fare as they age. Women are the majority of theolder1 population in virtually allnations and face different circumstances and challenges than men as they age. Older women are more likely to be widowed, to live alone, and to live in poverty. Older women tend to have lower educational attainment, less formal laborforce experience, and more family caregiving responsibilities than do older men. In this brief, we will examine the demographics that underlie the socioeconomic differences of gender and aging.