Good morning, Chair Vecchio and all committee members. I thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you on this important topic. I apologize that I couldn't be there with you in person.
I am Dr. Lia Tsotsos, Director of the Centre for Elder Research based out of Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario. We have been in operation as an applied, on-campus research institute for over 15 years. Our mandate is to conduct research that enhances the lives of older adults and their families. We began addressing our current demographic shift years ago, and are pleased to see the growth of interest, support and funding that is being devoted to exploring the challenges and opportunities presented by an aging population.
Our approach to research has always been an inclusive one. Our founding director, Pat Spadafora, coined the phrase “reciprocal benefits research”, whereby those engaging in research are more than just subjects and often have the opportunity to engage as active participants or even as co-researchers, helping to inform the direction of the research and its conclusions. For example, we spent many years offering and studying tutoring programs for older adults, with much of that work being supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, or NSERC. The older adults who engaged in the projects were studied, yes, but in the process they also received free computer training and helped with the development of standardized training materials. This reciprocity, the “with us, not for us” approach, is one that we continue to support wherever possible, including in the context of examining challenges faced by older women.
In this context, for example, we recommend that there be efforts made to directly engage with the older women deemed at risk for poverty or vulnerability in order to understand the pathways that led to their being in this situation. Instead of focusing solely on the current state of affairs, one must also explore the historical and systemic conditions that led to their current challenges in order to develop sustainable solutions. Sometimes the factors that lead to poverty and vulnerability, particularly in women, are lifelong and not related to age alone.
For example, from our work with those technology tutoring programs, we observed that some cohorts of older women were never responsible for the management of home finances and were not always very technologically literate. When they became widowed, suddenly that job fell entirely to them and required a significant learning process. This problem is compounded by changes that make some government services primarily accessible only online. In this example, the historical conditions that resulted in dependency for some women, combined with a shift in government processes, leads to an increased risk for vulnerability. These situations may be further exacerbated by the variety of unpaid caregiving duties—for children or for aging parents, for example—that disproportionately fall to women, further reducing their potential engagement in the workforce and increasing their lifelong financial vulnerability.
In our work exploring risk factors for social isolation and loneliness in older immigrants, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, or SSHRC, we have seen similar examples. Some older immigrant women come to the country with the expectation that they will provide a level of care for young grandchildren. As such, they primarily remain within the home, may not learn how to drive, and may be residing in suburban areas with limited municipal transportation options. Combine this with limited English skills and no independent source of income, and these women, once the grandchildren are grown up, may find themselves lacking purpose, social capital and the resources to address these issues. This again increases the risk of poverty, isolation and vulnerability.
Having said this, we would also advise against stereotyping or generalizing women of a certain age or situation. Occasionally, the discourse in this space automatically assumes that women are at greater risk or are more inherently vulnerable than men. This represents a form of gender-specific ageism. Previous work completed at the centre suggests that ageism is the most tolerated “ism” when compared with racism and sexism.
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR, have an action plan devoted to gender and sex-based analysis in research. We certainly support this approach as part of a diversity framework within the research community. Sex and gender-based analysis can inform considerations of how other determinants, such as ethnicity, health, socio-economic status and age, interact with sex or gender to contribute to such outcomes as risk factors for poverty and vulnerability. When we fund research that explicitly reflects and considers the diversity of the population, we will all be able to work with higher-quality, more robust datasets.
More broadly, the development of population-level, open-access datasets is also critically important.
The Canadian longitudinal study on aging is doing tremendous work to examine aging across the country by following 50,000 individuals for 20 years. As part of this project, there's a process in place for researchers like the ones at the centre to access those data. This is encouraging, as it supports further research and the development of interdisciplinary teams that could study the complex pathways of aging and how they differ across the country.
As I conclude, allow me to reiterate some of the general recommendations we have for work in this space. First, many of the factors that contribute to poverty and/or vulnerability in older women have origins in earlier life, so they should be considered as part of a more holistic look at these issues.
Second, despite such evidence, we should not make assumptions about the status of older women by default, as this may culminate in ageist thinking and behaviour.
Finally, research that fully considers gender and/or sex as part of its data collection and analysis can help us better understand how these factors interact with others to shape the experiences of all older adults in the country.
The last thought I will share is a personal one. My grandmother came to Canada in 1950. She was an active member of her cultural community and her English was good, but she never worked outside the home and never learned to drive. When she was widowed suddenly at 74, she found herself in a situation that was far beyond her capacity to deal with. Had it not been for the fact that our family was close, both geographically and emotionally, it would have been far too easy for her to have completely been consumed by that experience, being physically, emotionally and technologically isolated and vulnerable.
I work in the field of aging professionally and know the scale of the challenges we're facing, but personal experiences like these really drive home the importance of the questions we're asking and the necessity of answering them well.
I thank the committee, once again, for allowing me to contribute to this exercise and look forward to the outcomes and recommendations that emerge from this set of consultations.
Thank you.
