Background and objectives:
Gendered ageism refers to the intersectionality of age and gender bias and discrimination. It is widely prevalent and leads to inequality, injustice, oppression, exploitation and disempowerment of older women. In this study, we explore the impacts of gendered ageism on three areas of older women’s lives in three African countries. These areas are: (1) participation in public and political life and access to justice and law enforcement; (2) family relations, inheritance, and land and property ownership; and (3) violence, abuse and neglect.
Research design and methods:
Eighteen women aged 54–85 years were interviewed for this study. Thematic analysis was undertaken to identify and explore disempowering impacts of gendered ageism on their lives and rights.
Results:
In all areas of the participants’ lives, their lack of voice in their inability to make choices, to claim their rights and to participate meaningfully in decision-making were highlighted. These manifested in the suppression of their interests, opinions and aspirations in public life; denial of justice; prejudice and discrimination within family settings; exploitation, harassment, abandonment and violence; and an overall devaluation, dehumanisation and silencing of older women.
Discussion:
Women often outlive men and experience marginalisation for a greater proportion of their lives. Yet, their lived experiences receive limited acknowledgement and redressal. In developing countries, older women face multiple forms of oppression arising from gendered ageism. This study highlights such experiences with the expectation that this will generate awareness, garner support from stakeholders and help inform policies for the protection and equal treatment of older women.
Introduction
A person’s ability to live independently may be limited by physical and cognitive declines associated with ageing, including disabilities that affect mobility and self-care. This study examines the delays to accessing healthcare facilities among older adults who are frail or have disabilities, using the three-delays model.
Methods
A qualitative study was conducted during March and April 2022 among 21 older adults (aged 60 or above) who were frail or disabled (using assistive devices) in Bengaluru and nine key informants, consisting of geriatricians, physiotherapists, psychologists and NGO workers. Data were analysed using NVivo 12.
Results
Delays in accessing healthcare for older adults were attributed to multidimensional factors related to the individual (disability; lack of trust in healthcare workers; low/no income), the community and household (neglect/lack of awareness by the family; limited, inaccessible and unaffordable transport modes) and the health system (poor staffing; under-supplied healthcare facilities; waiting times at the hospital). Delays led to complications, hospitalisations and financial burdens for the older adults. The key informant interviews supported these findings.
Conclusion
This research highlights that it is important to overcome delays in accessing healthcare for older adults to ensure better health and wellbeing among this group. A holistic approach is needed to reach out to individuals, communities and households, and the healthcare system. Providing adequate transport services to hospitals should be planned in conjunction with the health department for timely delivery of care. Providing health insurance for older adults and improving geriatric care would be highly beneficial to improving health outcomes.
The chapter summarizes the book’s key conclusions. In relation to the current research landscape on midlife, the book sheds light on the usefulness of the concept of life transitions, especially concerning body changes, often in the context of work and care relations. However, these concepts should be embedded in broader processes at various scales – from the ideologies of neoliberal self-sufficiency, management and workplace management to global processes of ageing. In terms of policy, the chapter highlights the challenges and opportunities of more inclusive, gender-aware work schedules and workspaces. It also explores nascent policies and activism related to the recognition of menopausing as a significant process that concerns more than half of the people who have reached midlife and beyond.
This article presents what we regard as the primary topics of concern for a feminist policy on ageing (including care and caring), derived from the results of a collaborative study undertaken in the Basque Country. The data were gathered through meetings with eight equality specialists from Women’s Houses in the region and interviews with a total of 42 older women. Our analysis shows that one of the biggest challenges is identifying strategies for articulating these topics, making them more visible and increasing societal awareness. To that end, it is necessary to analyse the intersections between age and gender.
This chapter sets the agenda for long-overdue research on the geographies of menopausing. The long process of hormonal change that can have a marked impact on how people use time and space, and relate to each other, the chapter argues, is a highly pertinent issue to which geographers can contribute. By analysing how the contradictory term ‘menopause’ was invented in the medical field, the chapter illuminates awkward temporalities dictated by medical science vocabulary and symptomology, which control women and gender-diverse people as they age. The chapter sheds light on how gendered geographies of power can make an important contribution to researching experiences of menopausing, develop a plurality of knowledge and standpoints, and delve deeper into economic geographies to critically examine hormone treatment supply chains.
Setting the scene for the book, this chapter establishes an argument about midlife spaces and times as relational and embodied. It begins with reflections on the author’s positionality and radical openness to subjective ways in which midlife is experienced. The chapter also presents key approaches relevant to the subsequent chapters, outlining the argument for the importance of narratives that shape midlife spaces, temporalities and experiences. Furthermore, the chapter justifies how midlife relates to broader processes and attitudes towards ageing, particularly in relation to midlife transitions, body changes and work. The chapter introduces the relevance of menopausing as a significant social process with distinct geographies and concludes by alluding to relevant political aspects related to midlife in work and care relations.
In the 21st century, global demographics are rapidly changing, with a higher population of middle-aged people than ever before. As the ‘sandwich’ generation, people in midlife often experience significant work and intergenerational caring responsibilities, yet they are the subject of relatively little research.
This short, accessible book redresses the balance in offering a geographical approach to how people embody and claim space in midlife while analysing the influences of gender, class and location. The author considers midlife in varying socio-cultural and geographical contexts, viewed through the lens of the global neoliberal shift.
This chapter explores the notion of lifecourse transitions and theorizes opportunities and challenges that current lifecourse research presents in relation to midlife. Specifically, it delves into the transitions experienced in the body and in working life. The author argues that transitions are not clear-cut; rather, changes at work, embodied transformations and dynamic situations of care can be better understood if we place these changes within larger processes. At the micro scale, relationships in families and with other relevant people contribute to midlife changes to a great extent. However, they cannot be separated from processes at the macro scale, such as the political economy within which people live and work. The chapter uses original data from the author’s research with middle-aged people who migrate between Latvia, the UK and the Nordic countries and non-migrants in Latvia.
Drawing on original research with middle-aged people in Latvia, the UK and the Nordic countries, this chapter puts forward novel ways of analysing home and relationships as fundamental and highly complex processes in midlife. Particular attention is given in this chapter to how home spaces, places and temporalities construct specific experiences and relationships within families and broader communities. The research explores phenomena of home ownership and societal expectations of what a good life is in midlife, vulnerabilities related to renting in the middle years of the lifecourse, and inheritance as a specific and typical event that shapes relationships and the ways people live. The chapter provides a novel analysis of middle-aged migrants and their motivations to establish a home.
