ABSTRACT
A small proportion of older women are well off financially and some few have inherited enormous wealth. At the other end of the spectrum are those women who have been poor all their lives and who can expect greater poverty in old age. Old men and women represent 11.5 percent of the population. With medical breakthroughs in cancer and heart disease they could make up 25 percent. The elderly have a far higher rate of voter registration and actual voter participation than any other age group. There are more than fifteen million women who are sixty-five years of age and older. Neither the truly oppressed condition of old women nor their potential political and economic strength is firing the otherwise active imagination of the women’s movement. Close to six million women aged 55 and above work to make ends meet and keep them active. Many had never worked before and are employed in dead-end unskilled jobs.
