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Successful Aging: A Life-Course Perspective on Women's Multiple Roles and Health
Research Summary: Moen, P., Dempster-McClain, D., and Williams, Jr.,
R. (1992). "Successful aging: a life-course perspective on women's
multiple roles and health," American Journal of Sociology, 97(6):
1612-38.
Background
- Occupying multiple roles or identities, such as worker, wife, mother,
friend, volunteer, and club member increases social integration and
aids in coping with stress.
- Multiple roles may be particularly beneficial for health in later
ages, when there is a tendency towards disengagement from roles.
- Occupying multiple roles is also especially relevant to older women,
who are more vulnerable to social isolation.
- A life-course perspective considers experiences over the years as
pathways which "shape physical abilities and involvement in multiple
roles later in life."
Summary and Implications
- 313 women were surveyed in 1956 and again in 1986.
- Research found that volunteering throughout the adult years promotes
health: "of the women who were healthy in and before 1956, those
engaged in nonpaid club or organizational activities in 1956 were more
likely to remain healthy longer."
- Volunteering promotes multiple role-occupancy and activity later in
life. The benefits derive from the exercise of choice in volunteer activity,
as well as "personality characteristics related to being 'joiners',
the social contacts, support, and other psychosocial payoffs of social
participation, or some other, unmeasured construct."
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