Old, Female, and Rural

Old, Female, and Rural explores specific issues relating to the realities of being old, female, and rural, including rural women''s economic well-being, intergenerational family relationships, health care and service delivery, and health and long-term care concerns. Across a variety of settings, methodologies, and issues, the uniqueness and complexity of older rural women''s lives are illuminated, and the chapters underscore the rich history, character, and life experiences of aging in rural environments.

In reading Old, Female, and Rural, you’ll discover just that--the reality concerning the daily living situations of the nation’s older female populations in rural places. This scholarly collection will help you and others dispel the romantic frontier myths of the stoic, tenacious, and independent rural woman. Instead, you’ll find real direction for change in the statistics that truly reflect the older rural woman’s mental, physical, economical, and social existence.

Old, Female, and Rural will show you stark realities concerning the older rural female’s economic well-being, intergenerational family relationships, health care and service delivery availability, and long-term care concerns. The candid demographic and epidemiological data you discover in this book will not only expose the myths for what they are, but also allow you and others to transform the myths into daily realities of better policies and better living standards for the women who belong to this population subgroup. Specifically, you’ll read about:

• one woman’s subjective evaluation of growing old in a rural area
• rural women’s experiences of accessing health care
• the economic well-being of women aging in nonmetro areas
• changes in the informal support networks of women aging in the rural southwest
• a comprehensive synthesis of the above isolated topics, which provides future implications for research, education, and policy
  
  While the legends of the old American frontier have died, the older female populations in America’s rural areas live on--and they deal with some very challenging realities. Old, Female, and Rural takes you into the homes, lives, and minds of this complex and unique subgroup of America’s elders and points you and public administrators, government officials, educators, and civil servants toward the unsettled frontier of real social change.