Women, Ethnicity and Ageing in the UK

Mahmood Messkoub, Leeds University

Women, Ethnicity and Ageing in the UK The ageing population is not a homogeneous mass but differentiated by social class, gender, ethnic background and race; that by all accounts shape the social and physical ageing of individuals and largely determine their well being in the old age. Such differences have to be taken into account if the social and economic policies were to be successful in their objective of providing reasonable living standards for the mass of the elderly population in the 21st century. This paper is concerned with the situation of the elderly women among the non-white immigrants who have settled in the UK since the early 1950s, and who form the bulk of what the UK's Office of Population Census and Surveys (OPCS) designate as 'ethnic' in its enumeration of the non-white British population. One of the key issues addressed in this paper is whether the ethnic women are less economically empowered than their male counterparts and white women when they age in UK. To shed light on this question we present a macro view of older ethnic women, and focus on issues such as age distribution, employment, family and marital status, using the UK 1991 and 2001 Censa which for the first time included questions on the ethnic origin of the UK population. The paper also deals with two aspects of women's lives which have important implications for their welfare in old age - marital status and employment - and compare the situation of women from different ethnic backgrounds with their male counterparts and the white population. What are the relationships between marriage and employment on the one hand and empowerment in old age on the other? This question will be dealt with in the last part of the paper along with a discussion of some policy issues such as pension arrangements for ethnic women who start work late and have interrupted work histories, or are self-employed.