THE MENTAL-HEALTH OF ELDERLY WOMEN IN THE COMMUNITY

This community study of the mental health of women demonstrates twice as much psychiatric ill‐health among those over the age of 65 compared to younger women. The findings are best explained in terms of the loss of the work role for the elderly women rather than the loss of the domestic role. An apparently high frequency of phobia in the urban women is seen as an understandable reaction to their increased vulnerability and decreased mobility consequent on their chronic physical ill‐health. Copyright © 1990 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.