• Gender and ageing

Gender and ageing

This report summarises the evidence about women, ageing and health from a gender perspective and provides a framework for developing action plans to improve the health and well-being of ageing women.

It is argued that as they age, women and men share the basic needs and concerns related to the enjoyment of human rights such as shelter, food, access to health services, dignity, independence and freedom from abuse. The evidence shows however, that when judged in terms of the likelihood of being poor, vulnerable and lacking in access to affordable health care, older women merit special attention.

Implications for policy, practice and research include:

• the health status of older women: while life expectancy is a crude measure of health it does provide the ultimate yardstick. Efforts to overcome dramatic inequities in life expectancies among older women between countries and among socio-economic population sub-groups within a given region, must be a priority

• health and social services: professionals need to understand and recognise sex and age differences, especially when prescribing medications, treating mental health problems such as depression and health problems related to domestic abuse

• personal determinants: to improve older women’s quality of life and to keep health care costs down, more attention needs to be paid to preventing and managing disabilities

• behavioural determinants: culturally appropriate, and gender-responsive guidelines for healthy eating and physical activity, and which are specific to older people should be developed and taught in the community.

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