Social and Health Security of Rural Elderly Women in Serbia

Demographic trend of ageing population has significant socio-economic and political implications in most countries. Due to longer life expectancy of females, the number of elderly women in total elderly population increases constantly. This is a reason why we are talking about the phenomenon of feminization of ageing. However, elderly rural women, as a particular population group, are rarely in focus of scientists or politicians, and their everyday life have rarely been described. In developing countries they mostly stay on margins of important social and economic development strategies and policies. The main purposes of this research are to contribute to the exploration of the poverty issue among elderly rural women from a different point of view, and to show that their poverty goes beyond the statistical estimations of average income. The problem of poverty among rural elderly women is "deeper" and often includes socio-cultural, psychological, and health divestment and their complete social exclusion. From the human rights perspective there is a great probability that they are deprived of rights on social and health security as well as on personal integrity and human dignity.