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Across Europe, North America, and Central Asia, one in five women are aged 65 years or older. By 2050, more than one-quarter of all women in the region will be in this age group, and there will be more women aged 65 years or older than women under age 25.
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which remains the most widely endorsed international framework for the advancement of women and girls and gender equality worldwide, acknowledges some of the unique challenges which must be addressed to achieve gender equality and ensure rights for older women. It recognizes the higher risk of poverty faced by older women, whose retirement income is often impacted due to care-related interruptions in paid work throughout their careers and calls for active labour market policies and anti-poverty programmes directed towards older women. It encourages stakeholders to address and treat the specific health needs of older women and promote healthy and active ageing. It acknowledges that increased longevity and longer life expectancy among women can lead to social isolation for older women and calls on governments to take measures to increase the participation of older women in all aspects of society.
In many important areas, however, the Platform of Action overlooks older women and their specific needs. For example, the sexist attitudes and power imbalances that enable violence against women become more pronounced with age, yet the intersecting vulnerabilities of older women are not acknowledged. Similarly, the framework gives little attention to the unique impacts of conflict and climate change on older women. While the Platform of Action gives special attention to the girl child, a similar focus on older women is not included.
Insufficient progress for older women
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development recognizes gender equality as a precondition for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and important progress has been made towards some targets under SDG 5 on gender equality. Still, with five years to 2030 and on the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, progress for older women is insufficient.
Disadvantages in employment, care, pay, earnings and pensions accumulate over the life course resulting in multiple and intersecting challenges for older women in the UNECE region.
At all ages and in all countries, women are less likely than men to be in the labour force, but gender gaps are largest among older persons. Informal caregivers are less likely to be employed than those without care responsibilities. Women are more likely than men to provide informal care at all ages, but older women are often doubly burdened with caregiving responsibilities for their own ageing parents or partners and grandchildren, significantly impacting their ability to participate in paid work.
Disadvantages in the labour market across the life course contribute to persisting gender gaps in access to and adequacy of pensions. According to the ILO, fewer women than men above retirement age receive pensions in one-third of UNECE countries with data. In a majority of countries with data available from Eurostat, pensions received by men replace a higher share of earnings than those received by women. In countries that rely mainly on contributory schemes, pension coverage and adequacy tend to be lower for women than men due to lower labour market participation and earnings.
Labour market disadvantages and gender pension gaps lead to a higher risk of poverty and social exclusion for older women. Women are more likely than men to face poverty and social exclusion at most ages, and gender gaps increase with age (Figure 1). More than one in four women aged 75 and older across countries with data are at risk of poverty or social exclusion, reflecting the cumulative impacts of lifetime inequalities.
Advancing gender equality in ageing societies
To advance gender equality across the life course and protect the rights of older women, it is necessary to both prevent the accumulation of gendered disadvantages over the life course and to mitigate the risks resulting from gender inequality among older persons.
As part of the recent regional review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, UNECE countries reported a variety of measures aimed at preventing gender disadvantages across the life course including policies to promote female participation in the labour force, reduce the gender pay gap, and improve the gender balance in unpaid care and domestic work.
Policy actions that aim to mitigate impacts of gender inequality on older women are less common, both in the UNECE region and globally. Indeed, a recent study carried out by HelpAge International shows that older women are largely excluded from gender equality programming, including those from donors within the UNECE region. HelpAge’s analysis shows that only 0.1 per cent of all gender equality focused aid spending directly includes older women. Nonetheless, there have been some positive developments in addressing poverty among older women in some countries in the region. In Spain, a 2023 law mandates that the pension gender gap supplement is indexed annually. To improve income security for low-income pensioners in Canada—most of whom are single women—the Government enhanced earnings exemptions for its Guaranteed Income Supplement programme so that older persons who continue to work can keep more of their benefits.
Making older women visible
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day—"For ALL Women and Girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment.”—emphasizes the ongoing need for actions and solutions that reach marginalized women. Such efforts must include older women, a growing population in the UNECE region who risk being left behind under current frameworks. As the international community looks towards the next 30 years of action to achieve gender equality and ensure rights for women and girls, the needs of older women must be prioritized across all areas of concern. At the upcoming UNECE Regional Forum on Sustainable Development, member States will review progress towards SDG 5 on gender equality. In line with the Regional Implementation Strategy for the Madrid International Plan of Action, which highlights the imperative to achieve gender equality in ageing societies, UNECE calls for both gender and age-mainstreaming policymaking to ensure older women remain visible on the road towards gender equality.
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Source: unece.org