Economic Status of Older Women

Paid jobs for younger women are the best protection against poverty when they become older

Productive Lives: Paid and Unpaid Activities of Older Americans

The impending retirement of baby-boomers in the U.S. and the ever-increasing life expectancy there and throughout the world have generated interest in how much older citizens contribute to production. Through a review of social science literature and an analysis of Census, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and other data, this paper explores how older persons in the U.S. allocate their time to different types of productive activities, and identifies the incentives and disincentives that influence this allocation. The paper is written mainly from an economic perspective, but main themes found in sociology and psychology are used to consider obstacles, predisposing factors, and incentives to productive activities. Both paid and unpaid productive activities are analyzed. The main findings are: (1) Older Americans are employed in a wide variety of occupations and industries. (2) Nontraditional employment arrangements such as independent contractors, home-based work, part-time work, and bridge jobs are important to older workers, but opportunities for these activities may be limited. (3) Unpaid volunteer work in organizations such as schools and churches, and informal help given to family and friends, are part of older persons' contribution to society. (4) Economic, psychological, and sociological factors influence the level of productive activities of older persons, and are manifest in the decision-making of both employers and employees. (5) While recent changes in public policy such as modifications to the social security system may be conducive to the continuing labor force participation of workers nearing retirement age, there may be room for more proactive measures

Making Ends Meet: Getting and Spending in 2001 by Older People in France and the USA

The report analyzes budgets of older households based on data from official national surveys. Covering sources of income as well as major categories of expenditures, it gives insight into how countries differ in the ways older persons manage the financial aspects of daily living. French retirees have lower incomes than US retirees, but what they receive amounts to a larger share of GDP per capita than in the US -- 55.6% versus 32.0%. In particular, by comparing households headed by retirees with those headed by active employees, French retirees have a living standard more similar to that of the employed population than is true for American retirees. The study also examines sources of income and shows that labor income is a larger share of household receipts for retirees in the US. The growth of the older population has made age groups 65-74 and 75+ a significant consumer market in the European economy, as well as a potential labor source. Transportation, leisure, and health care have gained in importance. While the US, unlike France, has a significant drop in household income after age 75, the countries do not differ with respect to overall consumer expenditure in relation to age: both countries show a substantial decrease after 75. (Physical limitations reducing spending on leisure may be one factor). But older households in France spend half as much on health care as in the US owing to the coverage provided by the national health insurance program

Unemployment Insurance and Older Workers in the United States

People are living longer and healthier lives at the same time that layoffs are increasing and pension plans are being curtailed. As the era of longevity progresses, unemployment among older Americans is likely to be a growing problem. In addition to the traditional male workforce, a larger number of older women will have had substantially more work experience than was historically true. Among women without spousal support (the single, widowed, and divorced), many will find that they must remain employed if they are to meet their financial needs

Old and Poor in America

Education, ethnicity, gender, living arrangements and age group all contribute to an older individual's risk of being poor or near poor

Preparing for an Aging Nation: The Need for Academic Geriatricians

According to the author of this issue brief, a strong commitment by the government to a regular stream of financial support for geriatrics would encourage medical centers to establish or expand programs, enhance their ability to attract funds from private sources, and ultimately produce a sufficient number of academic geriatricians. Given the impending retirement of the baby boom generation, this process should begin as soon as possible. This issue brief highlights the critical need for academic geriatricians and presents a realistic proposal to help address the problem

Formation of iron-rimmed sandstone nodules on earth; terrestrial analogue for the formation of Martian blueberries?

NASA\u27s twin Mars Exploration Rovers, MER, Spirit and Opportunity, have identified numerous geologic features that hint at a watery past on Mars noted in Malik, 2004. Prominent among these features are the Martian Blueberries that occur as spherical hematite (Fe₂O₃) nodules. Hematite formation is facilitated by the presence of water, although there are presently no known sources of free liquid water on Mars. Chan et al., 2004 states that these blueberries are also similar to nodules found in the Jurassic aged Navajo Sandstone in Utah. An understanding of the processes controlling the formation of the Utah nodules may thus be key in determining the processes of nodule formation on Mars --page iii

LEXCONN: a French Lexicon of Discourse Connectives

International audienceWith respect to discourse organisation, the most basic way of signalling the speaker's or writer's intentions is to use explicit lexical markers: so-called discourse markers or discourse connectives. While a lexicon of discourse connectives associated with the relations they express can be very useful for researchers, especially in Natural Language Processing, few projects aim at collecting them exhaustively, and only in a small number of languages. We present LEXCONN, a French lexicon of 328 discourse connectives, collected with their syntactic categories and the discourse relations they convey, and the methodology followed to build this resource. The lexicon has been constructed manually, applying systematic connective and relation identification criteria, using the Frantext corpus as empirical support. Each connective has been associated to a relation within the framework of Segmented Discourse Representation Theory. We make a case for a few refinements in the theory, based on cases where no existing relation seemed to match a connective's usage