Les hommes et les femmes âgés et leurs sources d'aide

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Abstract
François Béland: Elderly men and women: the main sources of help. Gender has been hypothesized as an important source of variation of the availability of help for instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) in the aged people. Men mainly receive help from their spouse, while the main sources of help for elderly women are their daughter and other family member. Thus, access to help needed for IADL represents potential different difficulties for elderly maies and females. To study this issue, a sample of 969 elderly living in two middle sized cities and in a working class neighborhood in a metropolitan area used. A correspondance analysis of a four item scale that measured simultaneously the use of help and the location of the source of help was run, controlling for gender. The results of the correspondance analysis clearly showed that there was only one dimension with two poles on the scale. The first pole included the availability of a source of help living with the elderly person. The other pole was the availability of a source of help living outside the home of the elderly person. Elderly maies were associated with the first pole, elderly females with the second pole. Elderly persons in charge of the IADL or sharing these tasks with someone else felt in the middle of the scale. The factors associated with the use of a source of help living within or outside the elderly person's home were also studied. The results of the analyses showed that widowhood and functional incapacities explained the use of a source of help living within the household. By contrast, age, socio-economic status, functional incapacities and contact with family members were the most important predictors of the availability of a source of help outside the home. These results indicate that the use of help has very different meanings according to the gender of the recipient and the source of help which is available.

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