For Release:   April 1997

Contact:
Ellen Potocki
National Center on Women & Aging
potocki@binah.cc.brandeis.edu

Waltham, Mass. -- The National Policy and Resource Center on Women and Aging has launched a nationwide study on how women plan for their financial futures.  Five hundred women age 50 and older will participate in an in-depth telephone interview about their experiences with financial planning, asset building, pensions, and ways of seeking advice on financial matters.  The goal of the study is to add to the limited body of information on business, policy, and personal planning required to ensure women are not financially disadvantaged as they age.  James H. Schulz, the Ida and Meyer Kirstein Professor for Planning and Administration of Aging Policy at Brandeis University, is heading the project.  Results are expected later this year.

In the United States today, 32 million people are age 65 and older.  By the year 2010, almost half of all adult women will be at least 50 years old. Despite the large numbers of elderly women, scant attention has been given to their needs and concerns, according to Phyllis Mutschler, director of the Center and member of the faculty at Brandeis Universityís Heller Graduate School.
Established in 1995, the National Center is unique in its focus, bringing national attention to the issues and policies that face older women today and over the next quarter century.  The Center not only identifies critical concerns, but also addresses feasible solutions useful to both policymakers and women themselves.

National Policy and Resource Center on Women and Aging activities are designed to promote the security, health, and dignity of women in their later years.  Current activities focus on the following priority areas:

        · Income Security
        · Health Issues
        · Housing
        · Caregiving
        · Preventing Crime and Violence

The Center collaborates with a broad array of womenís and aging organizations to provide national leadership in addressing the many challenges facing women as they age and to promote the changes necessary to improve older womenís lives.  At the University, the Center brings together the resources of the Heller Graduate School, the Women's Studies Program, and the Aging and Lifespan Development Program in Psychology.

The Center is grateful for the support of the John A. Hartford Foundation of New York City. The Foundation is a private philanthropy established in 1929 by John A. Hartford.  Since 1979, the Foundation has focused its support on improving the organization and financing of health care and assisting the health care system to accommodate the nationís aging population.