Abstract
With populations aging rapidly in many developing nations, issues of economic dependency among the elderly are of increasing importance. Using data from a 1986 survey of the elderly on Java, Indonesia, I describe gender differences in economic well-being and identify characteristics associated with economic disadvantage. At both the individual and the household level, older women have fewer resources than older men. Even within categories of support (work income and remittances), women have lower levels of well-being. Gender differences in household-level economic well-being are due primarily to differences in household structure and in levels of skills. Gender differences in individual receipts (from all sources) are more complicated, but can be understood more clearly with reference to gender differences in skills levels (literacy, language, job skills), current work status and authority, and domestic authority.
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This paper is based on research funded by the MacArthur Foundation through the Center of International Research and the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. Preparation of this draft was funded by a National Institute on Aging postdoctoral fellowship at the Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Anne Pebley, Linda Martin, Tom Espenshade, Sanders Korenrnan, and two anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments. I acknowledge the cooperation of the Biro Pusat Statistik in providing me with the data.
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Rudkin, L. Gender differences in economic well-being among the elderly of java. Demography 30, 209–226 (1993). https://doi.org/10.2307/2061838
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2061838