Elderly People in the Rural-Urban Continuum: An Approach to their Subjective Perception and Life Expectations. The Case of Extremadura, Spain

Abstract

In this article we use a comparative analysis of people living in rural and urban areas to illustrate certain elements that form part of the daily concerns of people over the age of 65; a segment of the population meant to play an increasingly important role in post-industrial societies. The aim of our article is to analyze the subjective viewpoint of the elderly regarding the role they play within society and a set of life expectations associated with that role. We attempt to verify whether the hypothesis of the dissolution of the rural-urban continuum is valid in this field. The methodology used consisted of a probabilistic survey of 540 elderly people living in rural and urban areas of the province of Extremadura, Spain. The issues identified in the survey were processed through the construction of indicators. Our goal is twofold: to provide a description of the perceived universe of elderly people in relation to the set of variables selected and to verify the hypothesis that traditional differences in the lifestyles of people living in these different habitats are also vanishing among elder generations.