Nutrition and health in old age : the cross-sectional analysis of the findings of a survey made in 1972/3 of elderly people who had been studied in 1967/8 : report / by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy.

  • Great Britain. Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy
Date:
1979
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Nutrition and health in old age : the cross-sectional analysis of the findings of a survey made in 1972/3 of elderly people who had been studied in 1967/8 : report / by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    correspondingly larger proportion of widowed subjects. Table 4.3 also compares the marital status distribution in the 6 areas. A greater proportion of the men in Angus (17%) and Camden (11%) were single and a greater proportion of the men in Sunderland (38%) were widowed. The proportion of single women was low in Cambridgeshire (10%) and was particularly low in Sunderland (2%), while the proportion of widowed women was high in Sunderland (80%) and in Rutherglen (76%). 45 Mode of living 4.5.1 The mode of living by area for men and women separately is shown in Table 4.4. Only 24% of the men were living alone and the proportion was about the same in each area. The proportion of women (53%) who were living alone ranged from 38% in Cambridgeshire to 80% in Camden. Sixteen of the men and eighteen of the women who were living alone had been widowed since the last survey, and 7 of them (3 men and 4 women) had lost their spouse less than a year before the 1972/73 survey. None of the men and relatively few of the women (4%) lived with persons other than relatives, but 25% of the men (11% with the spouse) and 26% of the women (3% with the spouse) were living with other relatives. 4.6 Social class 4.6.1 Social class was coded in accordance with the Registrar General’s classification of occupations (1970); 29% of the men and 38% of the women were classified in the non-manual social classes (Table 4.5) and a comparison with census data shows a similar distribution. In Sunderland 79% of the men were in the manual social classes; in the other areas percentages ranged from 50% in Portsmouth to 85% in Rutherglen. In Portsmouth 22% of the men were classified as belonging to the class ‘‘Armed Forces’’. The pattern for the women (married women were classified according to their husband’s social class) was similar with 77% in Sunderland in the manual social classes and 15% of the Portsmouth women classified in the ‘‘Armed Forces’”’ class. 47 income | 4.7.1. An attempt was made to obtain some information about income. Respondents were asked to state their total weekly income minus any expenditure on housing, for example, on mortgages, rent, or rates. They were also asked for the sources of their income in terms of a State retirement pension, supplementary pension, employer’s pension, income from employment or regular income from other sources. Only 52% of the subjects provided information about their total weekly income, although all stated their sources of income. 4.7.2 Interpretation of information about income proved to be difficult for various reasons. The income given by respondents who were living alone could not be directly compared with half the joint income of married subjects living with a spouse. Even greater problems arose when a respondent was living with, and probably subsidized by, other relatives. Secondly the accuracy of the 1]