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Gender Differences in Active Aging in Canada

The Roles of Insufficient Income and Violence

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Handbook of Active Ageing and Quality of Life

Abstract

We recently developed an index of aging well following the WHO framework and our own results taking into account older adults expressions of aging well. The question remained why men in our study obtained higher scores than women on the aging well index. Here we use International Mobility in Aging data from Canada and a gender perspective to describe the distribution of the aging well index and examine the distribution of the known associated factors separately in men and women, and lastly explore the contribution to aging well of current psychological violence in family and intimate partner relationships. Our results show that in Canadian older adults the gender difference in aging well was largely explained by financial insecurity, psychological violence from partner and family and lack of neighbourhood safety. Enough money to cover basic needs and peaceful relationships and neighbourhood environments should be targets for public policy towards both aging well and the promotion of gender equality in aging well.

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Correspondence to María Victoria Zunzunegui .

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Zunzunegui, M.V., Belanger, E. (2021). Gender Differences in Active Aging in Canada. In: Rojo-Pérez, F., Fernández-Mayoralas, G. (eds) Handbook of Active Ageing and Quality of Life. International Handbooks of Quality-of-Life. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58031-5_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58031-5_21

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-58030-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-58031-5

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