Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies - Volume 16, Issue 2, 2013

International differences in health in older age are well-documented. Research on factors explaining these differences has not done justice to possible differences in factors related to ‘gender-regimes’. Data for this study were harmonised in the framework of the Comparison of Longitudinal European Studies on Aging (CLESA) project, which included population-based studies from Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Israel aged 75-84 years. Indicators of health were disability in self-care, depressed mood, and self-rated health. In addition to country (i.e., gender-regime), potential individual explanatory factors included socio-demographics, diseases, lifestyle, and social engagement. The findings show inter-country differences in disability from progressive to traditional gender-regimes according to a North-South gradient: men and women in northern countries reported less disability than in southern countries. Depressed mood showed similar differences, although in Finland it was higher than in other northern countries, and in Spain it was lower than in other southern countries. Self-rated health was poorer in southern than in northern countries, with Finland inbetween. The difference in women’s health between traditional and progressive genderregimes was larger for depressed mood and self-rated health than for disability. These differences persisted after accounting for individual explanatory factors. Among the explanatory factors, chronic morbidity showed the most consistent associations. The role of lifestyle and social factors varied across genders. Physical activity was more strongly associated with health in men than in women, whereas social factors were more prominent in women than in men. The international differences found in health largely corresponded to gender-regimes, and were only partly explained by individual factors. Further research on specific, gender-regime related factors is warranted.

Even though labour market participation of older women and men has been increasing all over Europe during the last few decades there are still major differences by country and by gender. This article discusses the relation between these differences in labour market participation and institutional arrangements in the field of the activation of senior people and pension reforms in various European welfare states. One major observation is that higher educational levels go together with higher participation rates, longer participation and higher actual retirement ages of both women and men. This holds no matter what type of welfare state is involved. However, social-democratic welfare states are more successful than others in combating gender differences in participation. Moreover, they succeed better than others in retaining older workers – men and women – for the labour market. This success is not based on one single measure, but on a complex of measures and attitudes among workers and employers that do not exclude older women and men, but stimulate them to invest in their human capital and helps them to reconcile work and private life throughout the life course.

The third age is a concept popularised by British social-historian Peter Laslett. It refers to an idyllic stage in the life course in which individuals are freed from work and family obligations, while having the means and health to pursue life goals. I argue that differences between men and women in the extent to which they provide of informal care, render gender inequality in the likelihood of experiencing a third age as described by Laslett highly likely. Furthermore, I posit that policy measures stimulating informal caregiving, though typically de jure gender neutral, can be expected to reinforce this form of gender inequality.

We explore how psychologists have incorporated gender and power into their explorations of third age women’s identities. Our systematic search revealed that only a few studies explicitly referred to the third age as a distinct phase of late adulthood. However, taking the chronological age of 56-75 years as a proxy for the third age, we identified relevant studies, adopting either a senescing, life-span development, socialpsychological or social-constructionist approach. Consistent with the third age as an employment and family free phase of life, many women in late adulthood resist the traditional interlocking discourses of femininity and aging as decline and take up new activities (frequently volunteer work). In most studies gender was reduced to sex (differences). Power was mostly implicit in analyses of micro and macro level processes, with a focus on variations in (dis)advantages. We recommend an intersectional approach for future studies.

Old age poverty, especially amongst women, is a serious risk that is barely addressed. Today about two-third of older people are living in Asia, Latin-America of Africa and this is estimated to rise to close to 80% by 2050, about 1.6 billion older people. Though many governments in these regions are working on the development of social security, currently, over half of older people worldwide – 342 million – lack income security. And, unless action is taken to improve the situation, it is estimated that, by 2050, more than 1.2 billion older people will still be without access to secure incomes (UNDESA, 2007) and will not enjoy their Third Age in good quality of life. Family support is declining in many parts of the world and improved social security policies have not compensated for this. The central question I pose in this article is whether women are more exposed to financial risks than men. I take a closer look at three socio-demographic trends with important implications for women: – Reduced fertility and increased life expectancy – the increasing dependency ratio and the risk of feminisation of poverty – Waning support from the family and the gap in social security

The South-African writer and poet Antjie Krog (1952) became very well-known because of highly personal accounts of the political and social situation in her motherland. In her poetry Krog tends to be even more personal, with her lyrical subjects aging together with her, following her own lifeline. The female body is a recurring theme in her poetry. The collection of poetry Verweerskrif (2006, Body Bereft in English, Lijfkreet in Dutch) is her most intimate and provocative book so far. In these verses Krog gives an account of how it feels for a woman to grow old(er), and addresses the unpleasant and often silenced aspects of female aging. She invents a new and subversive vocabulary for the third age and as such removes taboos and myths surrounding the discourse of the elderly, more specifically, the older woman going through menopause.