Evolving gender differences in health & care across cohorts (FUTUREGEN GNP66)

Women live, on average, longer than men, but live a greater portion of their lives in poor health. In old-age and in relation to older men, women are more likely to use care services and to be informal care-givers. Older adults` health and care are two clear examples of existing inequalities between men and women. FUTUREGEN aims to understand how GENder inequalities in health and care-giving and receiving evolve across GENerations in connection with changing cultural and social contexts and individual life choices, and how identified gender inequalities may evolve in the FUTURE. Current gender differences in health and care can be attributed to current circumstances and to how people lived their lives. Both are changing, but we presently know little about how these changes are shaping current gender inequalities in health and care and therefore cannot predict or ameliorate future gender differences. Are health inequalities between men and women narrowing as women achieve greater economic independence? Will shifting cultural norms mean future generations of older men will provide more care? How are gender inequalities in health and care tied to socioeconomic conditions? As men and women have been found to self-assess their health differently, which measures of health avoid gender bias? To answer these questions for Europe and North America, the FUTUREGEN team will build on the multidisciplinary expertise of its members to 1) apply novel quantitative methods to comparable international datasets and 2) obtain older peoples views through participatory research methods. FUTUREGEN will take a dynamic approach to gender inequalities in health and care across time and place that will shed light on the impact of past and current policies and societal changes. This will advance scientific knowledge in the area but will also allow public policies to proactively mitigate future drivers of gender inequalities. Having in-depth knowledge of the interaction of gender and socio-economic conditions (for example, class, education, wealth) will allow for better targeting of public policies across different groups.

Women live, on average, longer than men, but live a greater portion of their lives in poor health. In old-age and in relation to older men, women are more likely to use care services and to be informal care-givers. Older adults' health and care are two clear examples of existing inequalities between women and men. FUTUREGEN aims to understand how GENder inequalities in health and caregiving and receiving evolve across GENerations. More specifically, are health inequalities between women and men narrowing as women achieve greater economic independence? Will shifting cultural norms mean future generations of older men will provide more care? How are gender inequalities in health and care tied to socioeconomic conditions? Looking at how disability has evolved across different generations of older women and men across Europe confirmed that women report more disabilities than men, particularly in Eastern and Southern Europe. Differences between generations for women and men were generally small though. In a subsequent analysis of recently published studies we found that these differences in disability could only partly be attributed to men having a socioeconomic advantage. We then interviewed older women and men in Austria, Sweden and Canada on the meaning of 'ageing well'. They considered that independence, the social context (social contacts and welfare) and participation were often just as important as health and wellbeing. There were not major differences in the views of women and men, but women were seen has more socially active in old-age. We also investigated how caregiving to older people has evolved across different generations of women and men across Europe. Women of more recent generations were equally likely to be carers as women of earlier-born generations. Among younger generations, a lower share of men was engaged in caregiving to their parents and in-laws, but a higher share cared for their spouses in old-age. We explored whether this was motivated by individual opinions on gender equality. Indeed, more gender egalitarian men were more likely to care, while the opposite was observed for women. However, older men of younger generations are probably caring more for their spouses because they survive and remain married for longer periods than men of previous generations. What happens to women and men in old-age once they widowed? Both widows and widowers are more likely to use care. However, immediately after widowhood, men are less likely to use care suggesting that they may be more vulnerable to unmet needs when they lose their spouses. Throughout our analysis, we found that older women and men are not homogenous groups and there is quite some variation by socioeconomic status within women and men.