Care Arrangement Choices for Older Widows: Decision Participants' Perspectives

SUMMARY

This research examines how a wide range of care arrangement decisions for frail older women are made. Interviews were conducted with 11 older women (ten of whom are widows), nine of their family members, and six professional service providers. Maintaining the older woman's independence was identified as a major theme. While all decision participants identified it as an explicit or implicit decision-making goal, their meanings of independence were different. The older women's meanings were flexible, changing in response to changes in their physical condition and need for assistance. Adult children tended to identify their mothers as independent when they did not actually need assistance, or when they received help from other sources (e.g., home health care). Professional service providers were inclined to define independence narrowly, as avoiding nursing home placement. Minor themes associated with independence include responsibility, reciprocity, and the family's importance in maintaining independence. These themes help to clarify the complex dynamics that take place during care arrangement decisions and explain how care arrangement choices are made.     

Deconstructing Gender Differences in Experienced Well-Being Among Older Adults in the Developing World: The Roles of Time Use and Activity-Specific Affective Experiences

Social Indicators Research - Due to declining fertility rates and increasing longevity, the world is growing older. Improving the quality of life of older adults, and not merely preventing deaths,...     

A Sociological Review of the Reflections and Dimensions of Quality of Life of the Widows in Tehran

The article explores some of the theoretical perspectives on widows, followed by empirical findings on the issue in Tehran. Widowhood transition being pursued by drop in relations, is observed and examined from various dimensions, with the hope of improving the quality of life of the widows. Some of the socio-economic effects of widowhood as appraised by various thinkers and scientists, are reflected in the context. The phenomenon being in existence as long as socially regulated marriage continues under the cause-and-effect laws, needs probing with special reference to the modern time. That is, being subject to emotional crises, they need to be multi-dimensionally studied. Through a multi-method strategy, and with the use of questionnaire tool, data were collected. Widowhood as a common problem in old age is followed by the isolation, a period of change and new challenges, i.e., reflection of a major stressful life event. However, widows as a vulnerable social group are seen worldwide with commonalities. In other words, about half of the women householders in the world are widowed. The author reflects a clear and tangible picture of the widows’ quality of life, and their satisfaction with life through the tabulated data. Nevertheless, government and relevant agencies in Iran, need to work and plan hard to provide the widows with necessary security and support.     

The Time-Pressure Illusion: Discretionary Time vs. Free Time

People’s welfare is a function of both time and money. People can – and, it is said, increasingly do – suffer time-poverty as well as money-poverty. It is undeniably true that people feel increasingly time pressured, particularly in dual-earner households. But much of the time devoted to paid and unpaid tasks is over and above that which is strictly necessary. In that sense, much of the time pressure that people feel is discretionary and of their own making. Using data from the 1992 Australian Time Use Survey, this paper demonstrates that the magnitude of this ‘time-pressure illusion’ varies across population groups, being least among lone parents and greatest among the childless and two-earner couples.     

Time Use by Gender and Quality of Life

Italy has no survey that was specifically designed to measure the degree of quality of life for the population, although certain other surveys exist which contribute useful information on the issue. This paper will concentrate on the potential of using existing sample surveys and on initial studies carried out starting from the Time Use survey conducted by the National Statistical Institute in 1989.Daily activities are the key factor when analysing a person's quality of life, however, these must also be considered in context. First and foremost this context is the household, within which each person carries out more or less defined roles. The roles covered are, in fact, a crucial variable when evaluating each person's quality of life. This angle of obsevation is particularly instructive when seen in terms of developments from a gender standpoint. Interpreting a woman's lifestyle according to the presence of symmeetry of asymmetry of roles, accompanying this analysis with one covering subjective perception of satisfaction as to daily activities, is an essential approach for determining the real satisfaction derived from the different aspects of a person's daily life. In addition to conventional indicators, newly conceived indicators taking into account the division of roles can be of great help when carrying out this kind of study. In this sense the analysis of individual time use in relation to household time use represents a significant step forward when studying quality of life.     

Well-Being in Older Gays and Lesbians: A Comparison of Predictors

This study aims to examine the predictors of subjective well-being and their variations between older gays and older lesbians. Participants were 143 gays and 66 lesbians aged 56–80 who reside in Israel. Assessments included subjective well-being, hope, health, participation, activities of daily living (ADL), instrumental ADLs, environment and living conditions, and accessibility and availability of community services. In the fully-adjusted models, hope and health were the most potent predictors of subjective well-being, respectively, among gays and lesbians. Additional significant predictors, among gays, were community availability and accessibility and satisfaction with one’s environment and living conditions. Findings suggest that while primary predictors of subjective well-being are similar among gays and lesbians, communal and residential factors are unique significant contributors to the subjective well-being of gays. It may be that among older lesbians, but not among older gays, personal resources are more important contributors to subjective well-being in comparison to community-based resources.     

Older Lesbians: Experiences of Aging,Discrimination and Resilience

Older lesbians are, at minimum, a triple threat of marginalization due to ageism, heterosexism, and sexism. A national survey specific to this often-invisible population has not occurred in over 25 years. The present study was completed to reveal the needs, strengths, and experiences of the current cohort of older lesbians. Four hundred fifty-six older lesbians responded to an online survey on topics including sociodemographics, social activity, health, sexual identity, family relationships, romantic relationships, service/program use, mental health, end-of-life care, and discrimination. The results and implications are included as well as a comparison to the last studied cohort.     

Productive Activities And Subjective Well-Being Among Older Adults: The Influence Of Number Of Activities And Time Commitment

This study examines relationships among three measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness and depressive symptoms), and two global measures of productive activity (number of activities and time commitment). We argue that participation in multiple productive activities should increase subjective well-being because these behaviors increase social integration and provide meaningful social roles. Using the first two waves of the Americans’ Changing Lives survey, we estimate a series of OLS and ordered logistic regression models to examine this issue among a sample of respondents 60 years old and older. Our multivariate regression results show that as time committed to productive activities increases, life satisfaction increases. Both increasing numbers of productive activities and increasing time commitment predict higher levels of happiness. Also, we find only modest support for a relationship between productive activities and the number of and changes in depressive symptoms. Our results provide support for the idea that engaging in productive activities is beneficial to older persons’ well-being, implying confirmation of the role enhancement hypothesis and demonstrating the importance of social integration.This research was partially supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging (R03 AG018910). We thank Jan Mutchler for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Time Use on Trains: Media Use/Non-use and Complex Shifts in Activities

This study explores how travel time is used and how passengers conceptualise travel time in Danish intercity trains and intercity fast trains. The new contribution to the literature this study can offer is in the inclusion of all kinds of passengers in the different compartments to understand train travel as a dynamic act of moving with shifts in activities. A mixed-method approach is used with self-completed questionnaires, frequency observations, shadowing observations and interviews. The findings reveal that the train passengers’ acts on the move are framed by both macro- and microstructures. The passengers create a travel space in which they make dynamic shifts in different kinds of activities: media use, media non-use, social interactions and non-social interactions. Passengers expect the train operator to provide the travel space for different activities (including the possibility of mobile communication), and passengers can be frustrated and have anxiety if these needs are not fulfilled. The mobile phone is heavily used during train travel, and it appears that passengers are not typically annoyed by phone conversations during travel but may refer to previous experiences with annoyances.     

Internet Use and Subjective Well-Being in China

Using data from the 2010 China Family Panel Studies, we analyze the association between Internet use and various measures of subjective well-being (SWB) in a sample of 16- to 60-year-old Chinese. Our analysis shows that although intensive Internet use is significantly associated with lower levels of SWB, we hardly observe any associations when the focus is on participation in specific online activities. Nevertheless, SWB depends on the reasons for using the Internet and the extent to which individuals feel that their Internet use is displacing other activities. Our results suggest that, contrary to previous findings, differences in beneficial outcomes (the third level digital divide) do not necessarily arise from individuals’ actual Internet use (the second level digital divide) but rather may result from their subjective perceptions of such usage. Our findings also point to a possible cultural factor that puts Chinese Internet users at psychological risk.     

The Subjective Well-Being of Immigrants Aged 50 and Older in Israel

The present study evaluated the integration of elderly people who migrated to Israel during their lifetimes. Subjective well-being, as measured by the immigrants’ perception of quality of life, satisfaction with life and emotional state, served as a general indicator of integration. The integration of elderly immigrants has not received adequate attention in the literature. A unique database (SHARE-Israel) that was recently released has made study of this topic possible. The current study sample was composed of former migrants aged 50 and older (n = 930). The analytic model examined ethnic origin and migration variables in relation to the respective subjective outcomes, controlling for sociodemographic background, human and social capital and health. The findings show that in general, ethnic origin seems to matter less for the evaluation of immigrants’ subjective well-being than other socio economic factors such as economic status, social capital and health status. However, recent arrivals from the Former Soviet Union do differ from all other immigrant groups in their lower levels of well-being. In addition, the study points to the importance of language proficiency as a central means for integration in the destination country.     

Stress and Resilience in the Oral Histories of Rural Older Women

Oral history research has seldom focused on the reflections of rural older women. The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify: (a) stresses associated with major historical events that affected the lives of rural older women, and (b) strategies they used to deal with those stresses. Oral histories were gathered from a cross-section of 25 older women living in a small rural Midwestern community and analyzed using the method of constant comparison (Glaser & Straus, 1967 Glaser, B. and Strauss, A. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory, Chicago: Aldine.  [Google Scholar]). Content analysis revealed that economic hardship, disruption of family life, and fears and uncertainties were stressors associated with the Great Depression and world wars of the 20th century. Resilience was demonstrated by frugality, reliance on social supports, and acceptance. Implications for intervention with rural older women are discussed.     

Food Well-Being in Older Adults: Effects of a Universal Non-contributory Pension in Mexico

Social Indicators Research - One of the few universal programs in Latin America is the Food Pension for Adults Older than 68 (PAAM) of Mexico City, which aims to reduce food insecurity while...     

Reliability,Validity, and Variability of the Subjective Well-Being Questions in the 2010 American Time Use Survey

Part of a wider range of investigations to produce generally acceptable standards for measuring affective well-being, time diary surveys have tested several approaches to measuring subjective well-being during diary days. As an alternative to the standard approach of asking a single question about each activity reported in time diary surveys, the 2010 module of the American Time Use Survey asked six emotion questions about three activities. The perception questions captured how happy, meaningful, sad, tired, stressed, or in pain respondents felt on a 7-point scale. To evaluate this approach, our research examined the reliability and validity of the six emotion questions, and assessed their variability across activities. Using principal component analysis, we assessed the associations among items and obtained two activity-level components with Cronbach’s alphas of 0.68 and 0.59 and two respondent-level components with Cronbach’s alphas of 0.74 and 0.65. To test validity, we regressed self-rated health on the underlying components and socio-demographic controls. Both of the respondent level components were significantly associated with better health (odds ratio 1.81, 1.27). Using each of the perceptions individually, we found that happiness, meaningfulness, and lack of fatigue, stress, and pain were related to better health, but none as strongly as the first component. Finally, we examined the coefficients of variation to assess the variability in the well-being measures across activities. Measurement implications and limitations of this study are discussed.     

Aging of Indian Women in India: The Experience of Older Women in Formal Care Homes

The feminization of aging is a process that has begun in India but is not occurring uniformly throughout India. Older women are more likely to be widowed, poor, and suffer vulnerability to adverse outcomes like poor health. With the changing social landscape of India, middle-income older women are increasingly opting for ‘pay and stay homes’, an emerging type of old age home in India. Majority of the 97 women residents of ‘pay and stay’ homes reported being widowed (68%), and 25% were childless. Childlessness and widowhood were important considerations in the decision to relocate to an old age home. Older women reported higher degrees of psychological closeness and contact with daughters than sons, and the overall social network size was small. High prevalence of diabetes rates among older women carries implications for potential functional disability. Strong advocacy measures for empowering older women in India should be a priority policy directive.