MATURE MARKET HEADLINES POSTED 7/17/98
Boomer Couples Cling to Role Stereotypes
"Hurry up and finish YOUR housework, honey, or we'll be late for our gender equity seminar". That seems to sum up the boomer lifestyle which is often a contradiction in terms. Saying one thing, then doing quite another, as confirmed by a recent study of boomer couples.
The study, which focused on how couples share (or, in reality, don't share) household chores, suggests boomer couples tend to cling to ancient stereotypes of what constitutes "women's" work and "men's" work. In this recent study, Ohio husbands continued to avoid responsibility for routine housework, while their wives, many of them holding full-time jobs, do the lion's share of household chores, a statewide survey conducted by the University of Cincinnati finds.
This resulting "second shift" for women can place a strain on marriages, shows the Survey of Ohio's Working Families conducted by UC's Kunz Center for the Study of Work and Family. Working parents in Ohio were randomly selected to respond to the Kunz Center's survey. Married respondents were shown a list of 11 household tasks and asked how the chores were divided between them and their spouses.
Of the five routine tasks traditionally done by women (cooking meals, doing the dishes, laundry, grocery shopping and housecleaning), husbands estimated that on average they did these jobs 27 percent of time. Wives estimated their husbands' contribution to these tasks to be 18 percent. On child care, husbands said they assumed 35 percent of the responsibility for this task, but wives estimated their husbands' contribution to child care at 27 percent.
While the vast majority of spouses (94 percent) report that they are somewhat or very satisfied with their spouses, husbands' participation in routine household chores produces different levels of satisfaction within marriages. Men who do more housework report significantly lower levels of satisfaction with their wives, while women whose husbands do more housework are more satisfied with their mates.
"This places couples in a difficult situation. If a woman has a husband who helps out with housework, she will be happier with him, but he will be less happy with her," said David Maume, UC sociologist, Kunz Center director and author of the Ohio study.
"Men may support their wives working, but men also expect their wives to take care of the home and are unhappy when asked to do more housework. Thus, many women work full time during the day, and then work a 'second shift' of household chores at night," said Maume. Also, the survey finds that people who exercise power in the workplace also exercise power in the division of housework. Men who perform managerial duties do significantly less housework, while female managers get their husbands to participate more in household maintenance. Educational levels of husbands or wives and family income were unrelated to men's share of housework.
Men do handle such tasks as trash disposal, yard work, home and auto repair, and handling finances an average of 70 percent of the time. But the difference between men's and women's jobs in the home is that men's tasks can be delayed, while women's tasks are more constant and demanding.
The Ohio findings show men's contribution to household chores has changed little from earlier decades, when husbands' share of housework was estimated at 20-25 percent, Maume said. Hmm. If the boomers are the "change" generation, maybe someone forgot to tell them, because "the times, they aren't a chang'in", at least when it comes to the division of household chores.
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Age-related Muscle Decline Needs Remedy
The AARP Andrus Foundation has announced the completion of a study to examine the strength, flexibility and length of the calf muscles of older women. The calf muscles
(muscles that bend the ankle and the foot downwards) play important roles in basic functional activities such as getting up from the floor, standing up from a chair, balance, and walking.
This study looked at how these muscles change as a result of the aging process. The research project, titled "Strength and Extensibility of the Calf Muscles of Older Women," was conducted by Richard L. Gajdosik, Ph.D., PT, a professor at the University of Montana. Three groups of women were recruited for this study: 24 women ages 20-39, 24 women ages 40-59, and 33 women ages 60-84. All subjects were considered to be healthy and active. All the subjects were tested to measure normal ankle-foot angle, then range-of-motion tests were conducted.
The majority of subjects had range of motion in the normal range. Subjects participated in stretching exercises to lengthen calf muscles as much as possible, then the muscle length, and maximum ankle rotation, and calf muscle strength were tested. Dr. Gajdosik found that all of the measured characteristics decreased with age. Total maximum length of the calf muscle, range of flexibility, and calf muscle strength were all lower in the older age group, and amount of muscle stiffness was higher.
There were no differences in those subjects who were on hormone replacement therapy versus those who were not. The results that strength and flexibility in these muscles declines with age for even healthy, active women indicates that interventions are needed to enhance the functioning and independence of older women. Source: AARP
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Alzheimer Research: Trials and Tribulations
The July issue of Nature Medicine contains three research papers which represent a significant advance in the fight against Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Claudio Soto and colleagues of New York University Medical Center, report what may be the basis for a new therapeutic approach to treating AD.
The researchers have manufactured short synthetic peptides, that they refer to as beta-sheet breaker peptides, targeted at disrupting the formation and deposition of amyloid beta-protein (Ab) in the brain. Ab is widely acknowledged to be involved in the early development of the disease. Injection of these peptides into the brains of rats modeling AD inhibited Ab formation and reduced its deposition.
The peptides were also shown to prevent neuronal cell death in the laboratory. In another paper, Bruce Yankner at the Children's Hospital, Boston, reports on the development of a primate model for AD. Yankner's results add weight to the hypothesis that Ab deposits are a cause rather than a result of the disease. Finally, German scientists describe a new method for the potential diagnosis of AD-there is currently no test which can successfully predict the disease-using the development of characteristic Ab aggregates in samples of cerebrospinal fluid from suspected AD patients. The role of Ab in AD is common to all three papers.
In a fourth, related article published by Stanford University under the authorship of Mike Goodkind, the ethics of genetic testing for the purpose of predicting or diagnosing Alzheimer's disease is questioned. Stanford's Program in Genomics, Ethics and Society (PGES), says Goodkind, has concluded that genetic testing is "inappropriate for most people".
"Some people want to know everything they can about themselves, their health and their risks. For such people, armed with the proper background and context, genetic testing in some cases might offer peace of mind," said Laura M. McConnell, PGES associate director and lead author of a report on the new study in the July Nature Medicine. "But genetic testing for AD [Alzheimer's disease] won't change their medical care and may lead to false hopes, added costs and depletion of resources that could best be applied to treatment,
research and caregiving," she continued.
Genetic testing for Alzheimer's raises additional ethical dilemmas, says PGES, because patients suspected of having the disease may lack the capacity to consent to a diagnostic genetic test. In addition, the tests have limited value because a negative test result doesn't necessarily rule out Alzheimer's. The PGES is currently preparing another report, "Individual Genetic Variation: Implications of the Coming Transformation of Medicine," in which PGES staff and fellows will review the ethical, legal and social issues that might arise in the future if rapid technological advances make it possible to conduct large-scale genetic testing and screening programs, McConnell said. According to Goodkind, PGES's draft report is scheduled for public review and comment at Stanford University on Saturday, October 17, 1998.
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Heart Risks Doubled in Depressed Males
Men with clinical depression are more than twice as likely to develop coronary artery
disease (CAD) as their non-depressed counterparts, a Johns Hopkins study has shown.
"Clinical depression appears to be an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease,
even several decades after the first episode," says Daniel E. Ford, M.D., M.P.H., lead
author of the study and an associate professor of medicine, epidemiology and health policy and management at Hopkins.
"When we accounted for traditional risk factors for CAD, such as high cholesterol, cigarette smoking, hypertension and diabetes, depression remained a statistically significant cause." Results of the study, supported by the National Institute of Aging, were published in the July 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. Ford and his colleagues analyzed data from the Johns Hopkins Precursors Study, a long-term investigation of 1,190 male medical students who were enrolled at Hopkins between 1948 and 1964 and who continue to be followed. In medical school and through the follow-up period, information on family history, health behaviors and clinical depression was collected.
After 40 years of follow-up, 12 percent of the former students reported suffering at least one episode of clinical depression. Those who reported clinical depression were twice as likely to develop coronary artery disease or suffer a heart attack than their non-depressed counterparts. On average, symptoms of CAD appeared about 15 years after the first episode of depression.
The men who developed clinical depression drank more coffee at the study's outset than those who did not but did not differ from their counterparts in terms of blood pressure, cholesterol, cigarette smoking, physical activity, obesity or family history of CAD. The study's other authors were Lucy A. Mead, Sc.M.; Patricia P. Chang, M.D.; Lisa Cooper-Patrick, M.D., M.P.H.; Nae-Yuh Wang, M.S.; and Michael J. Klag, M.D., M.P.H. All faculty members of The Johns Hopkins University schools of Medicine or Public Health, they work together in Hopkins' Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research.
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Retirees Help Small Biz SCORE Big
The SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) web site (www.score.org) has generated 7 million hits in its first year of operation. An estimated 500,000 individuals have visited the site during the last 12 months. SCORE provides no-fee business counseling to entrepreneurs across the country by enlisting the help of seasoned retirees who mentor and counsel small business owners.
The hallmark of this web site is email counseling. In one year, 17,000 small business hopefuls and business owners sought out SCORE advice online by using the Get Email Counseling feature on the Web site. The Web site offers a well-rounded mix of inspirational and educational content, as well as its trademark Get Email Counseling feature. Get Email Counseling provides Web visitors the chance to access SCORE 24 hours a day from any location in the country.
Through an extensive database of counselor skills, an entrepreneur can type a question and get a listing of counselors with the skills that most closely match the small business question. Entrepreneurs can then establish an email dialog with the SCORE counselor of their choice. Later, if needed, entrepreneurs can arrange for free and confidential business counseling on a face-to-face basis at one of SCORE's 389 chapter offices throughout the country.
According to SCORE President Fred Thomas, "Online resources are a must for busy entrepreneurs. SCORE is meeting entrepreneurs in cyberspace to fill a need for quick, reliable information and easy access to free small business counseling." SCORE was formed in 1964 as a nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and small business growth nationwide.
More than 12,000 volunteer members provide individual counseling and business workshops for aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners. Since 1964, more than 3.5 million Americans have participated in SCORE counseling and workshops. SCORE is a resource partner with the U.S. Small Business Administration.
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New Health Care Mandates Devastating
New health care mandates being proposed in Congress will cost 12,300 Pennsylvania residents their jobs over the next five years and 120,583 more people their health insurance during the same period.
That's the bottom line of a new study that business and civic leaders say will have a "devastating human and economic" impact across America and in Pennsylvania.
The landmark new study was released recently by the Coalition for Quality Patient Care -- a nationwide group of business, industry and civic leaders whose members in Pennsylvania say job and health insurance losses from proposed Washington and state level health care mandates will have a "devastating human and economic" impact here and across America.
"However well-intentioned those politicians are about the purpose of new health care mandates, they need to know that they only end up hurting the very people they are supposed to be helping." The study, conducted by the Barents Group of KPMG Peat Marwick, was commissioned by the American Association of Health Plans (AAHP) to examine the impact of new health care mandates nationally and in several key states, including Pennsylvania.
The study is unique in its examination of the statewide economic costs of federal health care legislation. Barents projects that Pennsylvania families will have as much as $382 less in take home-pay per household in 1999 and $472 less by 2003, as wages are cut to offset higher premiums. Alternatively, if employers and employees share the burden of higher premium costs, Barents projects that nearly 120,789 Pennsylvania residents will lose private health care coverage in 1999.
On the heels of the new study, Pennsylvania members of the Coalition for Quality Patient Care said they would begin aggressive efforts to inform members of Congress and the state legislature about the impact of new federal mandates on the state's residents and urge opposition to their adoption.
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AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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Seniors Attentive to Dental Hygiene
The American Dental Association and the Oral-B Lifetime of Healthy Oral Care Survey found that 95 percent of Americans age 65 and older believe that healthy teeth and gums are important. Men and women age 65 and older reported that the primary reasons healthy teeth and gums are important is because it is generally better for their overall health (42 percent) and that with natural teeth they can eat better.
Although an attractive smile may seem like a priority for teens and young adults, nearly half of the survey respondents age 65 and older selected a smile as the first thing they notice about people. Men and women age 65 and older also reported overwhelmingly (79 percent) that a smile is very important to a person's appearance. The majority of survey respondents age 65 and older reported a strong tendency toward positive oral care behavior.
The ADA recommends brushing twice a day, flossing once a day, visiting a dentist regularly and replacing your toothbrush every three to four months. While women reported taking better care of their teeth, on average, senior adults were in compliance with ADA recommendations.
On average, 55 percent of the seniors brush their teeth twice daily, visit the dentist regularly (70 percent) and replace their toothbrushes frequently (approximately once every three months). Even though the ADA recommends cleaning between the teeth once a day, only 40 percent of respondents report flossing or using an interdental cleaner on a daily basis.
When asked what the single most important recommendation seniors would have for younger generations, 55 percent advised brushing their teeth. More than one-fourth (29 percent) of senior women would advise flossing, compared to just one-in-ten (9 percent) senior men. And, 26 percent of seniors would advise seeing a dentist regularly. Not surprisingly, advice that seniors offered paralleled their own behaviors about tooth brushing and visiting the dentist.
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