Gender, marital status, and ageing: Linking material, health, and social resources

Abstract

This article examines the intersection between gender and marital status, focusing on inequalities associated with three sets of resources: An older person's material resources, their health resources, and their access to social organisational resources. Large-scale UK survey data are analysed, showing that marital status is associated with material inequality in later life but in divergent ways according to gender. The most materially disadvantaged are divorced women and men and never-married men. Inequalities in health resources differ markedly by gender but vary little according to marital status. Social organisational membership is linked to material and health resources, but these only partly explain the low levels of social organisational membership of older divorced men. Never-married women, unlike never-married men, have high involvement in social organisations. Material and social inequalities in later life are linked to the intersection of gender and marital status, reflecting gendered power relationships over the life course.