Title: Women on the front lines
Description: In 1900, one in 25 Americans was elderly. In 1990, it was one in eight, and by 2030, more than one in five Americans will be aged 65 or over. Women are 60 percent of the elderly population, and they are a much larger majority of the elderly poor, the elderly in nursing homes, and the elderly who live alone. Because they usually live longer, women outnumber men by nearly three to one past the age of 85. In fact, the recent phenomenal growth of the oldest age group is primarily due to the unprecedented numbers of women who are surviving into very old age. But it is not only elderly women whose lives are affected by the aging of the U.S. population. Women of all ages are "on the front lines" of the aging trend because they provide most of the care to growing numbers of disabled elderly Americans. The book's expert authors explore a network of issues confronting women in our aging society, including middle-aged women's struggles to combine eldercare with paid work outside the home, women's prospects in an aging labor force, the causes of widespread poverty among elderly women of color and women who live alone, inequities in our pension system, and continued marginalization of aging women. The chapters lay out a number of steps needed to ensure that increases in longevity will mean more years of healthy, productive life and not merely a longer period of chronic ill health and economic dependency. Within the next two decades, the United States will have a much larger, more diverse older population. It will happen whether we plan for it or not. This book examines the issues that individual women, policy makers, and all of us as a society must face in order to respond to the changing needs of an aging America.
Subjects: Social conditions, Economic conditions, Aged women, Government policy, Caregivers, Older women, Older people, Women, Aging, Women's Health