Professor Gonyea Takes Research on Older Women’s Homelessness to the World Stage
Older homeless women are one of the fastest-growing groups within the global homeless population, yet they remain largely absent from policy and research conversations. Judith Gonyea, professor at Boston University School of Social Work, is working to change that.
Dr. Gonyea presented her research at the 23rd IAGG World Congress of Gerontology and Geriatrics in Amsterdam, Netherlands, one of the most prominent international gatherings in aging research. Her presentation, “Gendering Older Women’s Homelessness: Family Connection, Care Work, and Housing Precarity,” co-authored with Kelly Melekis of the University of Vermont, challenges the long-standing stereotype that casts older homeless women as isolated and without family ties.
Their study focused on in-depth interviews with 15 women in their 50s experiencing homelessness. What they found was striking. Far from being cut off from family, many of these women were active caregivers: caring for adult children with serious health conditions, supporting aging parents and, in some cases, taking on paid caregiving work just to survive. One participant left her job and her relationship to become the sole caregiver for her mother for more than four years, only to face eviction after her mother died.
The women also pushed back against being defined by their housing status. Through the care they gave others, they reclaimed a sense of identity and self-worth that homelessness threatened to strip away.
Gonyea and Melekis state that addressing homelessness among older women requires looking beyond material need alone and investing in the social relationships and networks that shape their lives.
Learn more about Professor Judith Gonyea’s research