Brenda Strafford Centre on Aging

The Caregiving Aging and Financial Experiences (CAFE) Study is a national longitudinal study of over 4,000 older Canadians conducted by Dr. Alex Bierman (Department of Sociology) and Dr. Yeonjung Lee (Faculty of Social Work). Recently, two graduate students led research based on data from the CAFE Study. First, Megan Harmon (MA student, Community Health Sciences) published a study in the Journal of Applied Gerontology that was the first in decades to examine the consequences of gender and education for self-esteem in a national sample of Canadian older adults. Harmon showed that Canadian older women have lower self-esteem than men, and so too do older adults with lower levels of education. However, high-quality social relationships were a resource for bolstering self-esteem, and benefitted self-esteem more strongly for women. Consequently, gender differences in self-esteem were negated when older adults cultivated high-quality social relationships. 

Second, Fahimeh Mehrabi (PhD student, Sociology) led a study presented at the American Sociological Association’s Annual Meeting. Mehrabi’s study emphasized the economic basis of loneliness among Canadian older adults. This research compared three groups of older adults based on their type of housing status—those who owned their own home outright, those who were paying a mortgage on their home, and those who rented. Both mortgage-payers and renters had higher levels of loneliness than older adults who owned their own homes outright. Loneliness was particularly elevated among renters. Mehrabi then showed that shortfalls in financial resources largely explained elevated levels of loneliness in mortgage-payers and renters. Loneliness in later-life is not simply a consequence of deficient social relationships. Instead, lack of home ownership poses a potential risk factor for loneliness in later-life through strains on personal finances.