Women, Old Age, and Independence: Why Investigate Yet Another Gender Gap?

Abstract

Ageing as a challenge for all societies has been known to exist for more than a generation; the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) produced an authoritative study warning of population ageing in 1980 (OECD, 1981). Awareness of impending changes spread, first to the policy community, then to policymakers; it thus motivated a number of reforms through the world, adjusting institutions to cope with a changing reality.