Physical activity and health in mid-age and older Australian women 

Overall, these data suggest that, while notable proportions of women in both cohorts changed their physical activity category over consecutive surveys, on a population basis, overall levels of physical activity are increasing in mid-age women at this age (early fifties) and decreasing in older women (in their late seventies). In both cohorts, demographic characteristics (eg education, income) and health variables (eg smoking, drinking, chronic illness) were associated with the physical activity change categories. Women who were consistently active over two surveys, or who became active, tended not to be smokers, but reported drinking safe amounts of alcohol. They also worked part-time and had fewer chronic health problems than consistently sedentary women. This is important, because in the older cohort major illness and surgery were the main factors associated with decreasing physical activity. These results underscore the importance of preventing chronic illness in the middle-years by maintaining a healthy lifestyle which includes physical activity.

Interestingly, providing care or assistance to someone with a long-term illness, disability or frailty was associated with being or becoming active in the mid-age cohort, but the active older women were less likely to be a carer for someone with these problems. It is unclear why the active mid-age women were more likely to report these caring duties, but previous analyses of data from the mid-age ALSWH cohort have shown complex relationships between caring and hours in paid work, and it is possible that women who reduce their hours of paid work in order to cope with caring duties may then have more time for physical activity. Analyses of the complex time course relationships between changes in caring, hours of paid work and physical activity are ongoing. In light of the increasing numbers of older people in the population, keeping mid-age women sufficiently fit and healthy (through physical activity) for potential increased caring roles may be another reason why governments should invest more in promoting physical activity to this population group.

Finally, marital status was not associated with physical activity in the mid-age women, but in the older cohort, not being married and being single were associated with remaining or becoming active. In the life events analyses, death of spouse or partner was associated with increasing activity in both the mid-age and older women. Previous analyses of the ALSWH data have shown that, in younger adult women, getting married is associated with decreasing levels of physical activity (Brown & Trost, 2003).

This finding, and the finding that marriage was the most significant predictor of time spent in paid and unpaid work in 1991 (Bittman, 1991), suggest that at least some of the time pressures faced by women who try to fit physical activity into their day are caused by their increased contribution to unpaid tasks in the household, which are attributable to having a spouse. However, more recent data from the HILDA survey (Headey, Warren, & Harding, 2006) suggest that, while women still do the majority of housework, the total hours that men and women spend in paid and unpaid (household) work is very similar (about 60 hours a week) when couples are in full-time employment. However, women in part-time paid work (20 hours per week on average) report spending more than twice as much time in household tasks (19.1 hours per week) as men who work comparable part-time hours (7.4 hours per week in household work). In the ALSWH survey women who report 1-34 hours of paid work appear to find more time for physical activity, perhaps reflecting the more flexible nature of their paid and unpaid working roles.

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