World authority on ageing and the family to give public lecture in Manchester

Linda Waite, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago, will present her talk on ‘Sexuality during the Golden Years: Partnership, Health, and Happiness’ at the Renold Building on Sackville Street for the Manchester Interdisciplinary Collaboration for Research on Ageing (MICRA).

In her lecture Professor Waite will argue that healthy sexuality is a part of healthy ageing. Whilst stereotypes of older adults generally ignore sexuality, Professor Waite’s research shows that the majority of older men and many older women have active sex lives, and only at the oldest ages do most partnered adults report that they did not have sex in the past year.

Whilst older women are much less likely to be sexually active than older men, her research showed this was because they are less likely to have a partner, with most older women experiencing the death of their partner.

Professor Waite will also show that an active sex life in older age is linked to satisfaction with a partnership, with those unhappy with their marriage less likely to be sexually active.

‘We carried out s to compare what couples say about their marriage’ says Professor Waite. ‘An early look at older couples suggests that personality traits of each of the spouses or partners affects the way the other assesses the marriage, including satisfaction with sex’.

The lecture will be chaired by Professor James Nazroo, Director of The University of Manchester’s Cathie Marsh Centre for Census and Survey Research and Co-director of MICRA. This event is free and open to all; members of the public can register their intention to attend on the MICRA website.

Linda Waite is Lucy Flower Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Aging at the University of Chicago.

She is also Principal Investigator of The National Social Life, Health and Aging Study (NSHAP), a large-scale, nationally representative survey of Americans 57 to 85, which focuses on the relationship between social networks, intimacy, physical health, emotional well-being and cognitive function at older ages.

She has been awarded MERIT Award from the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes for Health, given to outstanding NIH Principal Investigators. Waite is chair of the Committee on Population, National Research Council.

She is co-author, with Frances Goldscheider, of New Families, No Families?: The Transformation of the American Home (University of California Press, 1991), winner of the Duncan Award from the American Sociological Association.

She is also author, with Maggie Gallagher, of The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially (Doubleday, 2000. She is past President of the Population Association of America, a member of the Sociological Research Association, and is listed in Who’s Who in Economics, 4th Edition. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Michigan.

The Manchester Interdisciplinary Collaboration for Research on Ageing is a network promoting interdisciplinary and innovative research on all aspects of ageing based at the University of Manchester but working more widely in the Greater Manchester area.

MICRA currently brings together nearly 600 academics, practitioners, policy makers and older people to enrich the research environment and to help bridge the gap between academic research and policy and practice.

Led by Professor James Nazroo (sociology), Neil Pendleton (Geriatric Medicine) and Professor Alistair Burns (old age psychiatry and the Government’s ‘Dementia Tsar’), MICRA has access to leading researchers and practitioners from across the field of ageing research, and works in partnership with voluntary and public sectors organisations to share expertise and experience and to raise the profile of research on ageing.