WOMEN AGEING: Social Work Intervention

‘Gender’ and ‘ageing’ have become the core of any genuine development concern both at the national and the international level. Demographic trends have made ‘population ageing’ inevitable in almost every country today. The longevity of population has increased from 1920s – first in developed countries followed by developing ones, thanks to health and medical services. The special problems confronting the aged women have their origins, in part, in their very early life. The problems of an ageing woman are not so much a product of the ageing as they are a product of widespread perceptions of the inferior status of a woman throughout her life.

There is no dearth of books on this topic written both within and outside India, but the present work is different since it provides a kaleidoscopic review of the varied theories, policies and specific issues in a lucid manner. It makes a vivid micro-level analysis of various issues of ageing from gender perspectives with focus on the lifestyle, needs and problems of the urban aged women across various income categories. Teachers, researchers, NGO professionals, social workers, volunteers and government officials working in the area of gender, gerontology and social work will find the book extremely useful.

Vineeta Srivastava is the Director (Research) in the Department of Social Work, Janardan Rai Nagar Rajadthan Vidyapeeth University, Udaipur. She is a recognized social activist working on various gender issues. She has involved herself in the capacity-building of social work functionaries in the state of Rajasthan and has actively contributed her skills as resource person in various training programmes.

She is also a prolific writer and has to her credit many articles published in reputed journals of social work, both in India and abroad. The awards she has received include IBC Foremost Educator of the World (2008); IBC 2000 Intellectuals of the 21st Century, 2009, Cambridge, UK; Professor Radha Kamal Mukherjee Young Social Scientist Award (2001 and 2002) and Senior Research Fellow of the Indian Social Science Association, 2008.