By Canadian Centre for Elder Law (British Columbia Law Institute)
In 2011 the Canadian Centre for Elder law (CCEL) started the Older Women’s Dialogue Project (OWDP) to identify and take action on barriers to the well-being of older women. While gender has a significant impact on life experience, research and policy analysis often renders older women invisible: feminist inquiry tends to focus on girls and women of child-bearing age and gender-neutral aging policy concentrates on the experiences of men. The OWDP was designed to address this gap in legal research, policy and law reform.
As part of this project the CCEL has been conducting focus groups with older women to learn about their personal experiences and identify the challenges they face as they age. Since 2011 the CCEL and its partner, West Coast LEAF, have met with close to 500 older women from diverse communities, running consultation events in nine different languages. This report of the OWDP identifies findings from a second phase of consultation events held in 2014 and 2015, which included older women from across the Vancouver Lower Mainland but featured a focus on Indigenous women, women living with a disability and elder lesbians and queer older women. The report identifies 18 barriers to the well-being of older women, including social science and legal research to contextualize the experiences of older women, and concludes with 30 legal, policy and practice strategies for taking action on the issues. The report is a resource for researchers, governments and communities that will enhance their understanding of the experiences of older women and identify steps they can take to improve quality of life for older women in their communities.

Full Content: SSRN