Differential Ageing Impact on Women and Men - Essay Example

DIFFERENTIAL AGEING IMPACT ON WOMEN AND MEN Differential Ageing Impact on Women and Men Introduction There have been numerous impacts and problems brought about by the fact that U.K. population has appeared to be growing older. Such include the economic implications, pension factors as well as social implications (Sargeant 2008). In the U.K it has clinically been proven that there is an ageing population whereby men averagely live an age of 75 while women live up to a staggering age of 79.9 which ranks them in the 18th place in the globe for the longest life expected span. Like many other countries in Europe, United Kingdom’s population has been discovered ageing. Inasmuch as the number of the elderly people has not been rising so fast as in some countries like Japan and Italy United Kingdoms census in the year 2001 revealed that there were a big number of people with 65 years of age and even older in comparison with under 16 that lived in the same country. Between then and 2009, the percentage of the 65 aged populations went up to 16 percent from 15percent, which in the analysis was an increase of 1.7million persons. In the same period, the number of those below 16 decreased from 21 to 19 percent. In estimation, by 2040 in UK there will be approximately fifteen million individuals aged 65 years and over compared with close to 8.8 million under the age of 16 (Kuh 2014). Differential Ageing Impact on Women and Men Ageing means the structured disadvantages mainly associated with advancing age. Gendered ageism, in this case, refers to how ageism brings about the differential impact on both women and men. The societal different attitudes towards the older people have been different in history depending on the societies. Actually, from the nineteenth century onwards into the twentieth century, aging people have been taken to be economically redundant and equally considered as a burden in the society financially in the grown cost of the state pension and health care. The families in charge that are expected to offer informal care for them also take them as burden. Women and men experience old age, not in the same way but differ in few ways (Veldhuis 2008). The prevalence of the societal attitudes usually develops into a moral panic in the perceived grown number of older people within the population of U.K. frequent use of terms like ‘elderly’ normally draws a perception of contrast between the young who are believed to be normal and the old people who appear different in the society. Such terms usually reinforce the perception of the older people as a different group that argues and takes the older people as a burden (Veldhuis 2008). However, the period of 65 years and above spans approximately thirty years incorporating the significant differentiation and diversity. The level in which the people are considered old is viewed in the negative perception on both age and the gender basis. For instance, women outlive the other gender for close to six years. On analysis, the mortality advantage for women shows that there exist fifty percent more of women that are aged 65 years and over compared with men in which among those with 85 years and over, women automatically outnumber men by over three. Women’s expectancy of life is expected to be higher and will increase faster than that of men (Phillipson 2013). Even as the condition improve in the UK. Women usually experience relatively high rates of the chronic illness as well as disability later in their lives while on the other hand elderly men regularly suffer from acute and more conditions that really needs a finite hospital attention. The chronic illnesses like the senile dementia indeed require long-term attention outside the medical facilities that in most cases place a disproportionate sort of burden to the family or the community concerned (Stanner 2013). Currently in UK the healthcare professionals have not been adequately able to handle, such cases of old age illnesses and have not been able to educate others on the measures possibly taken to properly manage such extreme cases of the aging people in the country. In U.K. the families cannot be depended on in the provision of adequate support for the overgrown number of older women who have not only outlived men but have also been found living to a considerably frail age. The women do not only make up the majority of the old in U.K. but equally form the majority of the poor group of the old since they occasionally have less opportunity in earning their living in their lifetimes since they are discovered to be less active economically in their ageing period than men and equivalently, they are not able to access the formal security systems in the social setting and this regard, they end up with very low social status with the economic rights when they become widows. In developed states like the U.K., the present societal arrangements usually end up to a lifetime with both inadequate and unequal access to economic participation, opportunity and education for the women (Rubin 2011). Illiteracy has been common just like in some underdeveloped countries among the older generation with approximate one-third of the older women and nearly three-fifths of aged men with a little of basic writing and reading skills. It has been keenly observed that the ageing women spend most of their time working in the informal sectors of the economy than the older men in the U.K. In their old ages, the rates of their economic activity usually are different from the old women and the old men. Thirteen percent of the men aged 65 years and above are found to be economically active while only 7 percent of the ageing women are found to be economically active compared to the fifteen percent of the women in the less developed countries (Ogden 2011). The ageing women in U.K. mostly do not access the security systems and the pension benefits because most of them typically work outside the traditional labour markets. Consequently, they do not have access to the individual pay as you go pension sort of program and they lack the time to bring up significant saving or the wealth at the time of retirement. The order people most are the times when they lack care and brutally face most of untreated illness, they are usually uncertain about the new health problems that they would probably face in their future and they end up not able to pay for any cost and quality concerning the health care they critically need. Eventually, the effects of the chronic illness could at times limit their capability to remaining independent and supporting themselves (Taylor 2014). The old are very vulnerable since they require companionship nearly always as well as the assistance and continuous physical care. Generally, the women are found to be more susceptible than men since they typically have had less opportunity into amass savings for they are less able to have had paid for employment and usually are more likely to have gone out of the labour force sometimes earlier (OHara 2014). The ones who are aged 80 years and above usually have higher limited capacities accompanied with more complex requirements than the ones aged between 60 and 79 years. Consequently, they are discovered subjects to health and financial uncertainties. Conclusion United Kingdom’s population is rapidly ageing with the government and the society woefully less prepared. On normal circumstances, longer lives should really be a benefit but on the contrary, there has been detected collective failure in addressing the implications, which if not taken into consideration urgently, could easily turn into occurrence of miserable outcomes. Longer lives should represent a good progress and the changes do not always imply a significant or a fiscal crisis. Moreover, an impressive contribution in the society of U.K. that is made possible by the older people would even be greater in the result. To enable the success of the demographic shifts, many alterations are necessary in the attitudes of the U.K (Agnew 2014). Citizens concerning the ageing. Actually, many people would need to work for longer with the employers in it to facilitate. It is clear that not all women and men safe enough in providing the income they would expect later in their life when aged and not able to work. Therefore, the government has to improve the defined contributions for pensions that have been proven inadequate for the majority. Men and women need assistance I making better use of the wealth that is tied up with their property in support of their later longer lives. There should be incorporation of new systems of health in conjunction with the social care that needs to be very focused on early diagnosis, prevention, intervention as well as long-term conditions put forward in prevention of degeneration with less usage of the hospitals. In this regard, the new health system would be centered particularly on individual people where the patients engage in decisions concerning their health and care supported in managing their situations from their homes that will assist to prevent deterioration. The cabinet needs to assess the prominent implications of ageing in the society holistically and not leaving it to the departments that have looked at the effects on their cost and policies. References Sargeant, M. (2008). The law on age discrimination in the EU. Alphen aan den Rijn, The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International. Kuh, D., Cooper, R., Hardy, R., Richards, M. and Ben-Shlomo, Y. (2014). A life course approach to healthy ageing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (READ 2010) French, D. (2010). Health psychology. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. READ, S. and GRUNDY, E. (2010). Fertility history and quality of life in older women and men. Ageing and Society, 31(01), pp.125-145. Veldhuis, J. (2008). 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