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A HIGH STANDARD POLICY ON OLDER PEOPLE BASED ON INVESTIGATIONS OF THEIR NEEDS
Author is Messelis E. Co-author is Vert? D.
Developing a Policy for older people implies that the Policy must get visibility on their needs. The method pre-eminently for this to do, is setting up 'need researches'.
For that purpose, a sample of 4325 residents aged sixty and over of 9 cities in West-Flanders, were interviewed from January 2004 until March 2005. The information was generated by means of standardised questionnaires. The research question: what is the impact of the membership of associations, gender and age on a number of variables. The impact was examined by means of Multifactor ANOVA.
60+ board members are significantly more involved in their neighbourhood, they have a larger social network, a significant more positive old age picture, a higher education, a higher income, they are less physically vulnerable, less solitary then 60-plussers that are just member or no member.
60+ women show a tendency to have a better social network then 60+ men, this in spite of the fact that they don't have a larger social network and they are not significantly more satisfied then 60+ men concerning their social networks. We also stress that 60+ women have a significantly lower level of education, ditto income, they are more physically vulnerable and they have a higher fear of crime then 60+ men.
If Policy makers want to create a Policy for older people who is accessible for everybody, they must give more attention on the position of 60+ women as well as on the stimulation of board participation in older women and men.
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