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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.
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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

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References

NOTES

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