The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University

National Program on Women & Aging

Women & Aging Letter
Excerpt - December 1999

Challenges to Women in the 21st Century
Volume 3, Number 4

What do you see as the biggest challenges (old and new ones) for women age 50 and over in the next two decades? And what is your best advice as to how we should prepare, individually and collectively, to meet these challenges?

This issue of the Letter publishes responses to these two questions from ten members of the editorial board. As you read them you will see a strong consensus among these experts regarding the challenges that lie ahead. As Lou Glasse and Marjorie Cantor observe:

"The current problems of women growing older will not go away in the 21st century inadequate income, access limits in to health care, and difficulties in paying for long-term care."

While there is a basic consensus among the women on our Editorial Board, the observations are also rich and varied in the insights and recommendations provided. They challenge us to avoid complacency, given the progress of this century.  Instead, we need to recognize that big challenges lie ahead if we are to recognize and deal with the problems of tomorrow.

Lou Glasse, former president of OWL and a leading advocate for the rights of older women; and Marjorie Cantor, Professor and Brookdale Distinguished Scholar at the Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University and author of the study Growing Older in New York in the 1990s.

Stubborn Problems -- by Lou Glasse and Marjorie Cantor

The current problems of women growing older will not go away in the 21st century. The biggest challenges for midlife and older women will continue to be income inadequacy, a lack of health care access, and the financial challenges of long-term care.

Many women can expect to have low retirement incomes in the future. Pension policies are increasingly based on employee, not employer, financing. Also, many employers are shifting the risks of pensions to employees, creating financial hardship for low wage workers and even more insecurity for all workers. And the current five year vesting requirement for many pensions bars some women from ever getting money from a pension plan.

That is why Social Security will continue to be a woman's bedrock income source in the 21st century.

Advances in health research and care provide hope for an improved quality of life for American women in the years to come. However, for many mid-life women without health insurance, quality health care will be inaccess-ible. And high out-of-pocket health costs will deter millions of older women from securing the care they need. Moreover, the current problem of costly and fragmented long-term care will escalate with more people living longer but with smaller families to provide care.

To meet these challenges, women need to:

  • Expand their knowledge about financial options and financial planning.
  • Improve skills that may lead to greater employment opportunities.
  • Determine projected pension and Social Security income relative to future needs.
  • Be proactive with regard to health.
  • Work with others to overcome gender bias and to promote policies that address family needs such as universal health insurance, a viable system for addressing long term care needs, and a system of adequate Medicare and Social Security that we can be sure will be there when we need them.