The Astonishing Lives of Older Women: How to Create Pleasure Over Peril in Peak Longevity

Journalist Welsh (Happily Ever Older) offers an illuminating survey of the challenges older women face in North America today. Life expectancy is increasing, and women are living longer than men on average. Yet, after years of being paid less than men, taking time off work for motherhood, or, as single or divorced moms, spending all their earnings on their children, women are left with smaller pensions and savings. “Add unaffordable housing to the mix,” Welsh notes, “and it is women... whose older years turn to hell.” The author interviews advocates for the elderly and profiles older women who are financially struggling in order to spotlight such systemic issues as well as offer cogent advice—she touches on the importance of maintaining social interaction, romance, and sex late in life, and also presents some creative means for getting by on a reduced income. The specter of late in life homelessness is the most striking takeaway, however, as Welsh casts a harrowing light on the growing number of senior women who are drowning in medical debt and living out of their cars. Concluding chapters detail efforts in Canada to build more social housing for seniors as well as the increasing number of elderly women living with roommates. It’s an unsettling but, unfortunately, practical guide to aging. (Apr.)