Older Women’s Experiences of Social Care in Ukraine

In my recent conversations with older women in Ukraine, I was often told that ‘everyone has their own family’. Indeed, for many in the country, family is the central part of life, with older women at the forefront of both the giving and the receiving of social care. But even people with families cannot rely on them entirely for their care needs. In Ukraine’s small regional towns, many people have left the country or moved to a bigger city in the face of limited employment options. Meanwhile, unless there is an immediate danger from the ongoing war, older people rarely leave their place of residence, where they must endure power cuts and missile attacks. As a result, the share of the Ukrainian population aged 60 or over has risen rapidly since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

So how do older Ukrainians, especially women, manage their everyday lives in a context of war and large-scale emigration? To better understand their experiences, I conducted qualitative research on women over 60 in a post-industrial town in northern Ukraine with a population of roughly 60,000. The everyday provision of social care in the town offers lessons about the activities that sustain social cohesion in an aging urban population in crisis.

Social care networks

Older Ukrainian women are not only receivers but also active givers of care. Close family aside, they look after their gardens, pets, former colleagues, neighbours, and extended families. Most of these women’s social care networks are with those they have worked with or live near. Depending on who is close by, the women prioritise certain relations over others – for instance, if two women have absent families, they might rely on each other more.

The acts of social care I witnessed were rarely described by the women themselves as care, aid, or favours. Rather, these acts are seen as a mere side effect of communication. The women are more likely to ask for a favour from others if they meet on a regular basis or have reciprocal responsibilities – it is hard to keep asking for favours that cannot be returned. For older women, a feeling of common ground is essential for the close contact that turns into the giving and receiving of care.

Women over 60 differ greatly in their abilities to sustain their social care networks. With time, as people become harder to reach or pass away, these networks weaken. Because maintaining ties requires regular common activities in a shared physical space, aging and emigration of family members leave older women with a sense of emptiness. This adds to the challenges that older women already experience, such as poverty, financial dependence on their families, reduced mobility, and a lack of accessible medical care.

The full-scale Russian invasion has brought further challenges. The 2025–26 winter was especially hard, reducing the already limited mobility of some of the town’s women, particularly the older ones. Frequent power cuts, freezing temperatures, and a lack of regular street cleaning made many places temporarily inaccessible for older women and their own houses uncomfortable.

In these conditions, phone connections – which were already widespread before – have become essential for almost all older women, especially those who have experienced a loss of mobility. Talking on the phone with neighbours, former colleagues, and extended family is the most frequent way of keeping in touch for less mobile older women.

Among the institutions that the town’s older women use to rebuild or maintain their social care networks are a state-run social centre and a charity that works with the state, churches, and libraries. While the social centre, churches, and libraries have been operating for a while, there has been a notable rise in charitable activity since the full-scale invasion. Some charity-led initiatives have already disappeared again because of funding difficulties. Still, as social workers from these initiatives told me, these places have helped the women to make new connections, some of which have grown into friendships.

In these venues, the town’s women can exchange advice and experiences, spend time together, or seek emotional support. ‘They really are my family,’ said one woman about both the users of the social centre and the library staff. Public venues with stable basic amenities, such as electricity and hot water, become places where women can socialise with others in the same living conditions.

The importance of social bonds

Social care among older Ukrainian women is a form of social bonding that involves balancing needs and prioritising relations. Care is thought of in terms of reciprocity and the right to be looked after. For many, family comes first. Yet this does not mean that older women do not look after anyone outside their families; they just do not see this as care.

The women I spoke to also distinguished between care as a horizontal act, which is usually part of their social bonds, and care as a top-down act, which can be perceived as help. When possible, the women tend to rely on the horizontal ties between them, and only when these relationships become scarce do they turn to institutionalised care. That is not to say that vertical care is not valued; rather, it points to a perception of care as an exchange, and in a vertical relationship the women have limited capacity to give care back. The women prefer to remain equals with one another, balancing the giving and receiving of care, coming together to talk among themselves, and going shopping together.

These emotional and reciprocal aspects of social care must be taken seriously. And it is important to pay attention to the material structures that enable them. Older women need free public places that allow for regular joint activities and that are staffed and maintained for this purpose. As they become physically separated from their families and gradually lose their friends, older people increasingly value regular socialising, which they can use as a basis from which to extend or rebuild their other social care networks.

Oleksandra Kokhan is a sociologist and social anthropologist. Since September 2025, she has been a fellow in the Ukraine Research Network@ZOiS (UNET), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space.