Women and family in the later years: findings from the 1990 general social survey

Aging is a feminist issue. Women on average live longer than men, live longer in disability or with chronic health problems, more often experience the deaths of spouse and friends, more often live alone in their later years, are significantly poorer than men of the same age, and more often institutionalized. Yet the feminist challenges of aging, both individually and collectively, have yet to be fully explored. Despite growing attention to aging in research and social policy, much more needs to be known about women's experiences with aging.

Women and Family in the Later Years: Findings/rom the 1990 General Social Survey f Aging is a feminist issue. Women onaveragelive longer than men, live longer in dis­ability or with chronic health problems, more often experience the deaths of spouse and friends, more often live alone in their later years, are signifi­cantly poorer th~n men of the same age, and more often institutionalized. Yet the feminist challenges of aging, both indi­vidually and collectively, have yet to be fully explored. Despite growing attention to aging in research and social policy I much more needs to be known about women's expe­riences with aging. The perspectives typi­cally employed in the social sciences to study aging do not enable a clear under­standing of how women's experiences as we age may be the consequence of our life circumstances, which differ substantially from those of men. The exception is the fern inist perspective on women and aging which essentially holds that women's ex­periences with aging are determined by what women are expected to be and do socially. (Gee & Kimball, 1986: 9; McDaniel, 1989). In no arena are social prescriptions for women sharper than in family, and yet older women's experi­ences in and with famil y is the arena about which we know least. Much of what is known about older women's experiences in and with family and friends is from qualitative or small scale studies (Kaden & McDaniel, 1988, [or example). Until 1985, when the first General Social Survey was conducted, no Canada-wide data existed on the social aspects of aging, except for what little could be gleaned from the Census or pub­lic opinion surveys. The 1990 General So<;:ial Survey focuses specifically on fam­ily and friends, an·d includes a representa­tive s.ample of older Canadians, within a 62 By SusanA. McDaniel sample of all community-dwelling Cana­dians over age 15, enabling a glimpse of the experiences of older women in a fam­ily context that can be generalized to all older Canadian women. Context care-giving crunch. Not surpriSingly, given women's longer life expectancy and traditional caregi ving roles in fami­lies, women provide the bulk of SPOusal care until their spouses die. Research reo veals that women (largely daughters and daugh ters-in-law) provide most of the care to elderly relatives as well (Gee & Kimball, There isa great deal of discussion about 1987; Kaden & McDaniel, 1990; aging in Canada today, both in the popular McDaniel, 1988a; McDaniel, 1990; press and in academic journals. Aging is McKinnon & McDaniel, 1991). Men are ·c· .. I l I I., ! [ .- I { ( an issue of policy significance too, given more like! y to provide indirect assistance, ) the number of times it crops up in political such as financial help, and tend only to be I. debates and policy papers. Several themes called on to do caregiving when no female l are recurrent in contemporary discussions: altemati ve exists. that population aging is a problem to be According to previous studies, women solved; that aging is an economic con- have been found increasingly to be in a cern, largely because of the presumed crunch of generations requiring help. dependency of older people on society in Women of middle age, for example, may terms of pensions and health care; and that have teen or young adult children who older women pose a particular problem still need parenting. The now popular because of our presumed double (both tendency to remain in the family home for women and old) dependency. These 10ng~r periods, during schooling or the themes recur not because they are based early years of work, means that mothers on fact, but rather because they somehow continue parental roles longer. Further, fit popular beliefs about the lower status adul t children tend now to return home to of older people in general, and older parents aner divorce, unemployment, or women in particular. They also parallel other life difficulty. At the same time, many of OUf collective fears about eco- middle-aged women may have growing nomic and physical decline. responsibilities for their aging parents, Canadian society is aging, with wide- parents-in-law, aunts, uncles, and even ranging implications for the future. Popu- grandparents. Women in this situation are Iution aging, largely the consequence of a called, "The Sandwich Generation," for birth rate decline (thUS fewer young pco- obvious reasons. pIc entering the population), is occurring Caught in this network of familial de-everywhere in the industrialized world. mands,middle-agedwomenmaynothave For families, th.is means that there are time, energy or inclination to plan for fewer and fewer middle-aged and younger their own older years, to contin ue to work people responsible for larger numbers of outside the home, or even to look after older relatives. We now spend more of their own health and well-being. This our lifetimes caring for older relatives. means that the challenges faced nOW by directly or indirectly. than we do in rais- middle-aged women may follow them ing children. The implications for fami- into their older years. lies loom large. Data analyzed here are from the Gen' Among the challenges is the support or eral Social Survey, Cycle 5 (OSS-5) on '" CANADIAN WOMAN STIJDIES/LES CAIllERS DE LA FEMME J Family and Friends, with a sample size of 13,495 Canadians. Data were collected by interviews conducted in January through March 1990 (Statistics Canada, 1991: 2-3). The stratified random sample includes 3,196 non-institutionalized peo­ple 65 years and older, with 56.9% of these being women. GSS-5 focuses on relationships in families, and among friends, household help and supports, sat­isfaction with family and friends, and background socio-economic data (see S ta­tistics Canada, 1991 for further details). The General Social Survey series. initi­ated in 1985, is intended to gather data on Canadian social trends and to provide information on policy issues, so although some of the same questions are asked each year (to different samples), the focus of each survey is different. The 1990 GSS-5 is the first national survey of family and friends, representative of the Canadian population, and thus provides a rich glimpse into the lives and relationships of Canadians. In this paper, questions of interest in­clude unpaid work done for respondents, and their sources of emotional support when in need. To provide the context in which to interpret the findings, limited analyses are inel uded of income and of satisfaction by age and sex. All anal yses included here rely on data weighed to be representative of the Canadian popula­tion. Findings The first and ovcrw helming find­ing from analysis of GSS-5 is that older Canadians, both men and women, receive little unpaid help from outside their households, except with transportation. This is contrary to popular belief about the dependency of elders. Evidence from analyses not shown here reveal that those 65 years and older receive little paid help ei­ther. Women report receiving slightly more unpaid help than men, except \vith transportation. The greater help that women receive, particularly in the 80+ category, with housework and personal care is likely due to women's greater longevity, and to lives, and lesser access to pensions. The decline in unpaid help to women over 74 with home maintenance may be that women of this age. who are dispropor­tionately widows, tend tomove into apart­ments or other facilities requiring less maintenance. That older women tend to be so self­sufficient is remarkable in light of their socio-economic circumstances. Among women 65+, 79% have incomes less than $15,000 a year, while only 7.8% have incomes of$25,OOO or more. For men, the comparable figures are 47% and 28.1% - quite a difference! Close to half of those 65+ report health-related activity limitations, with more women reporting limitations than men, particularly in the older age groups. Yet a majority of older Canadians see themselves as being very happy, as shown in Figure 2. S ignifi­cantly, more women are happy up until the late 40's and early 50's, at which time, more men report being very happy. Despite their circumstances, a signifi­cant minority of older Canadians, both men and women, manage to help others. In anal yses not reproduced here, it is found that a significant minority of men at all ages after 65 help others, mainly with transportation, but also with home main­tenance and finances. Women tend to help most with personal care, but also with transportation and housework. The myth of the older dependent person is laid to rest with these findings. Like the woman of 80 who told her 60 year-old daughter that she couldn't come to live with her because the "old people" needed her to help them, the reality of older worrien's lives, as revealed in this 1990 survey, is far different than many popular myths would have us believe. Two questions on emotional supports, asked in th 1990 survey, are particularly relevant here: who helps first when the respondent is depressed, and who helps first when the respondent is upset with her/his partner. Gender differences here are large and important. With respect to the first question. men reveal their over­whelming dependence on spouses, and then onfriends. This pattern of emotional supports may be the result, in part, of availability as much as preference. Women, who are more often predeceased by their spouses, may turn to daughters and friends more because they have no spouse. The sharp decline in reliance of women on spouses with age suggests some sup­port for this. However, women's reliance on daughters, friends, sons, and siblings is grea ter than men's at all ages after 65, and does not sharply increase with age. There is, for both sexes, a strikingly high re­sponse of "no one" to this question. When spouscs are not an option, up to 25% of men in the various age groups reporting they would have "no one" to turn to when upset with spouse, as shown in Figure 3. While the "no one" response is high for women too, it is less high than for men, except among women 80+. Women report turning to daugh­ters and friends to a greater degree than men, who also turn to daughters a bit more than to sons. The picture that emerges here is of older women embedded in more car­ing relations in older years than men, despite greater impoverishment and disability. Men heavily rely on spouses to the neglect of other rela­tionships. Conclusion Y; women's greater probability of dis­I ability in later years. That women r receive slightly more fmancial sup­! POrt than men after age 70 is likely a '\ fUnction as well of women's longer Deidre Scherer, Lightness, 1989, non-woven fabric, dyes, thread, 9.5" x 8" Photo: Jeff Baird What emerges from this brief analy­sisofGSS- 5 data is that older women, despite significantly greater impov­erishment than men, greater disabil­ity, and greater likelihood of having experienced the disruption and trauma of the death of a spouse, are more likely than men to be self-reliant and l VOLUME 12, NUMBER 2 63 to maintain social supports. Older women are also more likely to have a network of people on whom they can rely for support, whereas men rely much more heavily on spouses alone. The striking theme emerg­ing from this analysis is' the degree to which women are relied upon by both women and men for emotional support. The potential policy implications of this analysis ·are many. Although older women, and men too, tend to be im­mensely self-reliant, it is clear that that self-reliance is contingent on significant supports, and no doubt sacrifices, by mid­dle- aged women relatives who assist in numerous ways. Without that support, substantially more older women would respond that they have "no one" to tum to for help. It is heartbreaking to find that so many men in particular, but also women, report that once their spouse is not an option, they can find no emotional sup­port from anyone. Health and well-being are well known to be linked to two central life circumstances: socio-economic situa­tion, and family/friend networks. Older women in Canada clearly do not have sufficient incomes to live well. They may make up for this by their wide social networks. Men, who are better off finan­cially in their older years, are less rich in social contacts and supports. AILhough the myth of the dependent elder is shat­tered by these findings, it is clear. that policy-makers must take steps to improve the socio-economic circumstances of older women in Canada - circums tances that are the cumulative result of gender in­equalities throughout life. The longer-tenn future is portended in this analysis as well. Those middle-aged women who are caring for their older female relatives, may also care for their own spouses lateron, leaving less and less time and energy available to care for them­selves, to work to build up pension cred­its, and to care for friends. Women's embeddedness in family and family com­mitments is not lessening. Older women of the future - those who are now mid­dle- aged - may have as difficult a chal­lenge in old age as our mothers and grand­mothers have today. contrary to popular belief. This societal caregiving crunch, faced largely by women, is one of the most salient policy challenges Canada faces in the 1990's and beyond. Acknow1edgments Thanks to Doug Norris and Josephine Stanic, Statistics Canada, for their help with accessing the data; to Erica van Roosmalen,for help with tabulations; and to David Odynak, Population Research Laborato ry, U ni veT shy of Alberta ,for help with graphics. The author alone is re­sponsibleJor the content and interpreta­tions in the paper. Susan McDaniel isaProJessorofSoci- 010 gy , University of Alberta and author of more than eighty publications on various aspects o/women's lives. WOMEH fiHD THERAPY: Hfluling and Social Change May 7 - 9, 1992 References Gee, Ellen M. and Meredith M. Kimball Women andAging. Toronto: Butterworths' 1987. ' Kaden, Joan and Susan A. McDaniel "C3regiving and Care-receiving: A Dou~ ble Bind for Women in Canada's Aging so~.iety," Journal of Women and Aging 2 . .). 3-26, 1990. MacBride-King, Judith L. Work and Family: Employment Challenge of the '90s. Ottawa: Conference Board of ) Canada, 1990. McDaniel. Susan A. "An Aging Canada: Sanwich and Caregiver Dilem­mas," Perspectives: Journal of the Ger. ontological Nursing Association, 12.2: 15-18, 1988. McDaniel, Susan A. "Older Women and the Quest for Justice and Peace" Canadian Woman Studies, 9.1: 78-80 1988. ' McDaniel, Susan A. "LesFemmesdans un Canada en voie de vieillissement une approche feministe," Cahiers quebecois de demographie, 18.1: 137-156,1989. McDaniel, Susan A; "Women andAg­ing: A Sociological Perspective," Journal a/Women and Aging, 1.3: 47-67,1990. McKinnon, Allison and Susan A. McDaniel. "Informal Care and Enhanced Coping among Elders: Findings from the 1990 General Social Survey," Paper pre­sented at the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association meetings, Kingston, Ontario, June 1991. Statistics Canada. General Social Sur­vey, Preliminary Data, Cycle 5: Family and Friends. Ottawa: MiniStry of Supply and Services. 1991. An examination of feminism and the struggle for equality in Canadian society 64 Keynote Speakers: Rosemary Brown, Amy Rossiter and Sandra Butler For more information, contact: Office of Continuing Education 160 Johnston Hall, University of Guelph Guelph, Ontario N1G 2W1 [phone] FAX [phone] CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMM1J