This paper analyses the influence of relevant variables (age, sex, marital status, health, income, education and children) on the risk of belonging to one of the four main types of household in which old European people live nowadays: alone, with partner, with others, in a collective household. Nine countries with different social and political contexts are compared by using different data sources. These socio-demographic characteristics play the same role in all countries except for the influence of childlessness and of gender, but the geographical heterogeneity of the living arrangements remains partly unexplained due to currently inadequate comparative data sources for Europe. This research paper is part of the Future Elderly Living Conditions in Europe project (FELICIE, 5th Framework Programme of the European Community for Research, Quality of Life), which covers nine European countries. The goal of the project is to forecast up to 2030 the types of households in which people aged 75+ will live and their future care needs on the basis of the determinants of living conditions: age, sex, marital status, health, number of children and financial situation.
The evolution of people's living conditions after retirement is generally explained by reference to changes in their health, income and marital status, or to the attitudinal changes that occur across generations (see for example the article by Christiane Delbès and Joëlle Gaymu on sexual life after the age of 50 in Population , 6, 1997). Here, Christiane D ELBÈS and Joëlle G AYMU examine the death of a spouse, a typical experience of old age, and its material, social and psychological effects on the surviving spouse. They employ the French "Transition from Working Life to Retirement" survey that is particularly interesting because of its longitudinal design, as the same persons were interviewed at age 62 and again at age 75. They show that the effects and experience of widowhood are different for men and women. When widowhood occurs, men receive more support from their family than women. The attitude of withdrawal to the domestic space with advancing age is more characteristic of widows than of married women, and much more of widows than of widowers.
Avec le recul de la mort et l’évolution des mœurs vers plus de permissivité, une fraction croissante des veufs et des divorcés décident de refaire leur vie. Plus nombreuses que les hommes sur le marché matrimonial, les femmes auront plus de mal à retrouver un compagnon, le goût des hommes pour une femme plus jeune, voire beaucoup plus jeune, accentuant ce déséquilibre démographique.
Résumé Aujourd’hui, en France, près de 4 millions de personnes sont veuves. Cette situation conjugale est la marque des plus âgés mais c’est aussi celle des femmes : 84 % des veufs sont des veuves ! Cette étude longitudinale décrit le contexte de survenue du veuvage, entre 62 et 75 ans, et la réorganisation de la vie qui y fait suite, sur fond de comparaison entre les enquêtés restés mariés et ceux qui sont devenus veufs. Elle montre en quoi l’adaptation au veuvage s’avère plus ou moins difficile selon que l’on est homme ou femme. Les domaines essentiels de la vie des retraités, la famille et les loisirs, sont examinés. Une large part de cette recherche est également consacrée aux répercussions psychologiques de cet événement. Tous les indicateurs concourent à qualifier le quotidien des veuves de plus difficile. Elles ont une perception de la vie et de la retraite plus négatives, souffrent plus de solitude et sont davantage sujettes à des tendances dépressives. Leur moindre intégration à l’univers des loisirs et leur plus fort isolement social montrent encore à quel point elles sont pénalisées. Si la surmortalité des hommes suite au veuvage est beaucoup plus forte que celle des femmes, ceux qui ont échappé à la mort semblent mieux s’adapter à la perte de leur conjoint.
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