Discuss how age, gender and poverty are intertwined

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Age, gender, and poverty are intertwined. Although middle-aged and older women make up an increasing portion of the work force, they are paid substantially less than men their age, receive raises at a slower pace, and still work largely in gender-segregated jobs.

As a result, women do not garner economic security for their retirement years at the same rate that many men do. Many women who are now age 65 and over spent their early adult lives as financial dependents of husbands or as working nonmarried women trying to support themselves in a culture that did not see women as the head of households or as sole providers of family income. Women also have a greater risk of poverty in their later years; statistically, women tend to marry men who are older than themselves, and women live longer than men. Consequently, nearly half of all women over age 65 are widowed and living alone on fixed incomes. The percentage of persons aged 65 and older living below the poverty line decreased significantly between 1980 and 2000.

This largely resulted from increasing benefit levels of entitlements—certain benefit payments paid by the government, including Social Security, Supplemental Social

Income (SSI), Medicare, Medicaid, and civil service pensions, which are the primary source of income for many persons over age 65.