Women in Later Life: Exploring Race and Ethnicity

“…the first book to comprehensively examine the lives of older women from ethnic minorities in the UK as well as non-migrant White women. The authors draw on extensive qualitative research to provide novel ways of looking at the priorities and concerns of older women, providing insights into what enhances their quality of life. Mary Maynard and colleagues have written an outstanding book... Women in Later Life will be essential reading for students on undergraduate and postgraduate courses on gender, ethnicity and later life.”
Sara Arber, University of Surrey

“…what is it like to be an older person and, particularly, an older woman? This carefully crafted and wide-ranging book seeks to answer this question…The book reminds us that age is a social construct, one which profoundly disadvantages women. For minority ethnic women, where this book makes an important contribution to a largely unexplored territory, the situation is even more dire. The authors have opened up a huge area of policy, demonstrating, despite the rhetoric of government, how badly we treat our elders.
Professor Gary Craig, University of Hull

Britain, along with other Western and industrialized countries, has an ageing population. We already live in one of the demographically oldest societies to have ever existed and the population is going to get older. By 2020 it is estimated that one third of the population will be aged over 50. Furthermore, older women outnumber older men, since men tend to die at a younger age than women.

In the academic mainstream relatively little is known about older women from minority ethnic communities. This groundbreaking book is based on interviews and focus groups with women of different backgrounds and ethnicities whose lives illustrate the strength of character and optimism that have often enabled them to live through hard times but who, in general, view later life positively.

In seeking to understand the relationships between age, gender and ethnicity, the authors focus on a number of key themes including::