Poverty management strategies for women over 60 in a prosperous society

The aim of the thesis is to highlight the importance of the topic of poverty among women over 60 years of age and also to find out what ways of coping with material deprivation are chosen by women who belong to one of the most vulnerable social groups living at or below the poverty line. A sub-objective of the paper is to formulate a set of recommendations aimed at preventing and managing poverty among women over 60. The presentation of the theoretical background in the first three chapters of the thesis serves to fulfil these objectives. The issues of old age are described, and the quality of life of women over 60 in old age is approached. Concepts such as poverty, social exclusion, and a prosperous society are defined. The problem of poverty of women over 60 years of age, its causes, possibilities of prevention and solution are defined in more detail. Attention is also paid to ways of coping with poverty among women over 60. The theoretical background is followed in the fourth chapter of the thesis by a description of the research conducted to find out what coping strategies women over 60 use to cope with poverty and material deprivation. The research was designed as qualitative. The research methods were semi-structured interview, observation and document analysis. The research population consisted of seven communication partners. Grounded theory design was adopted for data analysis. The paper includes recommendations for social work practice. The outcome of the data analysis is a theory capturing the coping strategies used by women over 60 to manage poverty, identifying the factors that influence the choice and implementation of these strategies. The thesis points to the importance of educating women about early financial security for old age, the need to strengthen social work outreach to women over 60 in poverty, and to support them in dealing with their situation, including strengthening their use of social supports to cope with poverty