Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:59:22.411Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Retirement and the Lifestyles of Older Women1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Wolfgang Voges  and
Hannelore Pongratz
Wolfgang Voges
Affiliation:
Institut für Soziologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Garystr. 21, 1000 Berlin 33.
Hannelore Pongratz
Affiliation:
Institut für Soziologie, Universität München, Konradstr. 6, 8000 München 40.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Change of residence from a private household to a residential care facility, implying the relinquishing of household activities, is as critical a life event for older women as retirement from employment outside the home is for older men. This transition terminates many of the activities that had structured the older women's lives for decades, and implies modification of patterns of lifestyle. Based on interviews with female residents of residential care facilities in the Munich area, a close relative who had observed the transition and an employee at the facility, the impacts of the move on dimensions/aspects of lifestyle were analysed, as well as the success with which adaptation to the new setting was made. The positive relationship posited by the continuity hypothesis between continuity in lifestyle and contentment with life situation were generally upheld, although the compensation for a dimension of lifestyle disrupted by the transition by another dimension often occurred.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1988 , pp. 63 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

2 Cf. Havighurst, R.J. Lifestyle transitions related to personality after age fifty. Proceedings of the 2nd Congress of ISSD, Israel (1975).Google Scholar

3 Kohli, M. ‘The world we forgot: A historical review of the life course’, in Marshall, V. W. (eds), Later Life. The Social Psychology of Ageing. Sage, Beverley Hills, 1986.Google Scholar

4 Cf. e.g. Beck, U. and Brater, M.Die soziale Konstitution der Berufe. 2 vols. Campus, New York/Frankfurt, 1977Google Scholar, Bolte, K. M. and Treutner, E. (eds), Subjektorientierte Arbeits- und Berufssoziologie. Campus, New York/Frankfurt, 1983.Google Scholar

5 Cumming, E. and Henry, W.Growing Old: The Process of Disengagement. Basic Books, New York, 1961.Google Scholar

6 Bengtson, V. L., Kasschau, P. L. and Ragan, P. K. ‘The impact of social structure on ageing individuals’, in Birren, J. E. and Schaie, K. W. (eds), Handbook of the Psychology of Ageing. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1977.Google Scholar

7 Schürkmann, M., Voges, W., Wolf, J., Kohli, M.Vorruhestand und ‘Generationenvertrag’. Zeitschrift für Sozialisationsforschung und Erziehungssoziologie 7 (1987), 117–132Google Scholar

8 With social convoy, a dynamic network concept is described, cf. Kahn, R. L. and Antonucci, T. C. ‘Convoy of social support: A life-course approach’, in Kiesler, S. B., Morgan, J. N. and Oppenheimer, Y. K. (eds), Aging: Social Change. Academic Press, New York, 1981.Google Scholar

9 Rosenmayr, L. ‘The family – A source of hope for the elderly?’, in Shanas, E. and Sussman, M. B. (eds), Family, Bureaucracy, and the Elderly. Duke University Press, Durham/N.C., 1977.Google Scholar

10 Weber, M. Class and Party, , in Bendix, R. and Lipset, S. M. (eds), Status and Power, 2nd edition. Free Press, New York. 24 pp.Google Scholar; Weber, M.Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Mohr (Siebeck), Tübingen, 1964. 686pp.Google Scholar

11 Cf. e.g. Bourdieu, P.Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Harvard University Press, Cambridge/Mass., 1984Google Scholar, or for the aged cf. Schutz, H. G., Baird, P. C. and Hawkes, G. R., Lifestyles and Consumer Behaviour of Older Americans. Praeger, New York, 1979.Google Scholar

12 Taylor, R. and Ford, G.Lifestyle and ageing. Three traditions in lifestyle research. Ageing and Society I (1981), 329–345.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Havighurst, R. J. and de Vries, A.Life styles and free time activities of retired men. Human Development 12 (1969), 34–54.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

14 Bertaux, D.Vie quoitidienne ou modes de vie? Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie 9 (1983), 67–84.Google Scholar

15 Nas, P. M. and van der Sande, M. L. ‘Urban lifestyles’. Paper presented at the Urban Anthropology Symposium, Quebec, 1983.Google Scholar

16 The data were collected during an investigation for the ‘4. Familienbericht; Die Situation der älteren Menschen in der Familie’, of the West German Federal Ministry of Youth, Family and Health.

17 For the concept of theoretical sampling cf. Glaser, B. G. and Strauss, A. L.The Discovery of Grounded Theory. Strategies for Qualitative Research. Aldine. Chicago, 1967.Google Scholar

18 Merton, R. K. and Kendall, P.The focused interview. American Sociological Review 51 (1946), 522–544.Google Scholar

19 Nas, and van der Sande, op. cit. 5.Google Scholar

20 Cf. the contributions in Garms-Homolová, V., Hoerning, E. M. and Schaeffer, D. (eds), Intergenerational Relationships. Hogrefe, Lewiston/Toronto, 1984.Google Scholar

21 These names are of course pseudonyms.

22 Hannerz, U.Exploring the City. Columbia University Press, New York, 1980.Google Scholar

23 Voges, W. and Pongratz, H. Wohnen im Altenheim als Ergebnis familienzyklisch bedingter Lebensereignisse'. Study for the Kommission des 4. Familienberichts. München 1985.Google Scholar

24 Voges, W. Alter und Lebensverlauf, . ‘Ein systematisierender Überblick über grundpositionen und Perspektiven’, in Voges, W. (ed.), Soziologie der Lebensalter: Alter und Lebensverlauf. Verlag Sozialforschungsinstitut, München, 1983.Google Scholar

25 For this aspect cf. Duvall, E. M.Family Development. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1972.Google Scholar

26 Cf. Strauss, A. Life styles and urban space, in Proshansky, H. M., Ittelson, W. H. and Rivlin, L. G. (eds), Environmental Psychology. Hold, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1970.Google Scholar