The objective of this study is to estimate and describe the participation of aged women in the labour market, and to investigate health differentials according to their working position, after considering the influence of social and demographic factors. This study comprises 4.607 females aged 65 or more, residents in 10 Brazilian metropolitan regions and participants of PNAD conducted in 1998. The following working categories have been defined: working, retired and other. The analysis was based on qui-square tests and odds ratios were obtained by multinomial logistic regression. Almost 10% of the aged women worked, 42% were retired, and 48% did not work nor were retired. Working women were younger, had higher income and schooling level between 4 and 7 years. Working was associated with better self-perceived health, less report of chronic diseases, having private health plan, less medical visits and hospitalisations, better indicators of autonomy and physical mobility and more dentist visits. Our results show that the proportion of women who remain in the active life in older ages is much lower than that found among Brazilian males in the same period. It is important to determine if the observed differentials in health among aged women are also found among women in active age.
Ageing; Woman work; Health
