Page 1057 - Week 04 - Thursday, 29 March 1990
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Mr Kaine: But how can you claim that ageing is a women's issue, for God's sake?
MS FOLLETT: I am about to address that question, Chief Minister.
Mr Kaine: There have to be two sexes and we both get old.
MS FOLLETT: Ageing is a women's issue. It is a fact that women do live longer and more women live to age than do men. It is also a fact that women, as they age, can face some pretty specific difficulties and one of those difficulties, of course, is poverty. Women in our society still do not have the same opportunities as men to earn good salaries and to become economically independent. As they age that relative poverty that they have had throughout their lives can be much increased because they are widowed, or because they have not got superannuation, or because they have not had the same earning capacity as men throughout their lives.
There is another aspect that makes ageing in particular a women's issue, and that is women as carers of the frail aged. It has been my experience that when there is a frail aged person in a family, it is most usually the women of that family who take care of that person and who take responsibility for all of their needs. I think that perhaps the report could have addressed the particular needs of ageing women somewhat more specifically and included some reference to women in the ageing population as having specific difficulties.
It is not just because of the demographic trends that we should take a greater interest in the needs of the ageing in the ACT. While the proportion of people in our community aged 60 or more is increasing rapidly - and that is a particular feature of the ACT's population - there has recently been greater recognition by public policy makers of the contribution which aged people can make to the community. There has also been a greater recognition of their needs as individual people - hence my comments particularly about the needs of women as they age. For too long I believe that ageing people have been treated as somehow separate from the rest of the community, and I think that is largely because most of them do not participate in the paid work force. They are set aside as a separate group. They have been put aside as a group of people who are left out of sight and out of mind, whether because they are in institutional care or merely because of their separate interests, their separate activities and the fact that they are no longer in the paid work force.
It is now commonly recognised that ageing people do have different needs and very different abilities. Their contribution to our community in both social and economic terms has been vastly underrated. I would like to refer in particular to the activities of ageing people as volunteers in our community. I know that there are any number of
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