Population inquiry around style of life in the third age

Abstract

Introduction: Population ageing wind up being worldwide phenomena, increasing the last decades. This extra life expectancy has brought doubts and preoccupation when it comes to the growth of how people could live in a vital way of life.Objective: To study the place of life and satisfaction level that holds the different aspects of the over sixty population group from Botucatu. Individuals and Method: A survey was made. The survey selected 365 elderly people from Botucatu. The people were chosen by comparing the stratification of social group and in a random sampling provided by the census map sectors supplied by IBGE. The method applied was adapted for the Brazilian reality and social situation and it was taken from Flanagan´s Quality of Life Scale and The Standard of Individual Life Style developed by Nahas. Results: Most elderly people interviewed were married, with a little formal education, and an average monthly income of three minimum salaries (US$275 per month). In general they have been living in the city for over 20 years in relatively small families, they have good eating habits, satisfied emotional and healthy lives, friends and leisure activities but doing little physical exercises comparing to other ages groups. Some changes in profile of elderly people over the last 20 years might be considered. There has been an increase growth in the number of elderly women, improvement education level, as well as a growth when it comes to the lifetime of advanced ages. However per capita income has not suffered changes over this period. Conclusion: These results show that the elderly population from Botucatu has changes that are and occurring and reflecting throughout the world level and they are related to demography, transition and nowadays pace of life. Despite living on low incomes and having poor education, they keep good lifestyle habits and consider themselves happy elderly people.