It is ironic that the majority of caregivers and practitioners in the field of gerontology tend to be older women themselves, often women between 45 and 60 years old. (The exceptions are medical doctors who are "the gatekeepers" of the system.) For many middle-aged women the decision to pursue a certificate or degree in gerontology is the result of having cared for older parents or relatives. Women who are already in the field of gerontology sometimes return to a gerontology program to upgrade themselves. Middle-aged women are the vast majority of volunteers, servicing seniors in residential care and in the community. For these women, the volunteer experience often leads to an interest in paid employment and hence to accreditation in the field.

In the fall of 1989, Ryerson's Continuing Education Certificate Programme in Gerontology conducted a survey of its students which yielded over a 90% response rate. 87% of the respondents were women whose average age was 43. The survey highlighted the changing orientation and interests of these students. Although they traditionally sought to enhance or acquire clinical skills in the treatment of older people, the respondents expressed a new awareness: an emphasis on their need to understand gerontology within an analysis of the broader societal issues. The students were concerned about a gap in their knowledge about such key issues as economics, law, advocacy, ethnicity, health care, and the special role of women. In response, the program is currently developing new courses to buttress and enhance the existing options.

A graduate of the program who sits on the Gerontology Advisory Committee at Ryerson recently informed the committee that her education had not prepared her to come to grips with the sexist and ageist practices, attitudes and policies that she encounters in her work. After years of studying gerontology, and as both a volunteer and paid employee in the field, she urged educators to seriously re-think their own approach. The system, as a practitioner currently encounters it, is rigidly hierarchical and refuses input from the consumer, from families and from front-line workers.

Many other former graduates have expressed frustration that they have not learned how to advocate on behalf of older people and on behalf of themselves as under-valued workers in the field. As the number of old women and men doubles over the next 30 years, there is an opportunity to change the focus of gerontological education, to make it a truly multi-disciplinary field, including such areas as political science, economics, women's studies and public administration. At the present time gerontology is more narrowly focused on behavioural sciences such as psychology, social work, nursing, and perhaps most of all, medicine.