Are older women really more disadvantaged than their male counterparts? The impact of coupling constraints on everyday life of older adults in China

Keywords: time-geography, older adults, everyday life, coupling constraints, gender
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 13

Abstract

Aging is becoming an increasingly pressing societal problem for China’s cities. Many feminist studies indicate that women are more vulnerable in general than their male counterparts. As age increases, however, this disadvantage may diminish. This study focused on the spatiotemporal behavior of older adults and, using time-geographical theory and methods, investigated the impact of coupling constraints on both older women and men in their everyday lives. The main results were as follows. First, coupling constraints impacted older men and women in different ways according to family type. For those living alone, men more tend to be alone in a 24-hour period than older women. In core and dual-core family, older men are much more dependent on their spouses, while older women spend much more time with other types of companions. Second, older men are with higher spatial viscosity; that is they rely more on the nearby space by walking. By contrast, older women choose more modes of transportation and tend to travel farther. Third, older men tend to travel with fewer companions, and destination type differs by gender. This may be a function of older men's more frequent opportunities to walk when going to their workplace. This study offers an alternative to the mainstream view of the relative behaviors of older men and women—while it is essential to attend to the particular vulnerabilities of older women, it is also important to provide a more nuanced lens to understand the stereotypes imposed by society on older men.