Older Women in the Post-Reagan Era

Abstract

This article explores the social, economic, and institutional factors that affect older women throughout the life cycle, and recent policy and ideological changes that will continue to affect older women in the decades ahead. The situation of the older woman is shown to result from lifelong patterns of socioeconomic and gender stratification in the larger society. The consequences for women flow from the complex and often subtle relationships in the social institutions of the family, the labor market, and the state and its social policy. The female roles of worker, unpaid caregiver, and beneficiary of public policies continue to be systemically unequal to those of men. The patriarchal structure of (and control over) the labor market and policy-making promotes the informalization of long-term care, ageism and sexism toward older women attempting to reenter the labor market, and the devaluing of female work that is not economically remunerated. The failure of social problems to address the underlying structural inequities of women perpetuates their disadvantaged economic and health situation throughout old age. Changes in social policies are required to address the problem of access to basic resources, including Social Security, housing, health, and long-term care, but most importantly, to abridge and compensate for the gendered division of labor and the lifelong discrimination that women experience.