Retirement has been the subject of increasing interest in the popular as well as professional literature, but the psychosocial consequences of the transition have received little systematic attention. To study variatons in adaptation to retirement, 80 female educators and educational specialists were interviewed. The majority were rated as…

Some family transitions have been reshaped by demographic changes in recent years. Changes in mortality patterns have expanded the duration of individual lives and family relationships. The death of a child, once an expectable part of life, is now so rare that it constitutes a major life crisis. Facing the death of one's parents, still a normal…

Social scientists have traditionally assumed that marriage and widowhood are the crucial life events for women, and that retirement has no effect on women's social relationships. To explore the relationship between women's work status and perception of peer and power relationships, a thematic apperceptive procedure was used. A sample of 1,428…

The need for new expertise in problem solving in the work setting has emerged as a woman's issue because work outside the home has become a primary means for personal goal attainment for about half the women in the United States and because traditional career patterns and norms are ineffective. Career planning is the process of individual career…

This paper addresses the mother-daughter relationship from the perspective of adult daughters. The first section focuses on information and myths about adult daughter-older mother relationships, including popular images and assumptions, misunderstandings, taboos, and mother-bashing. The second section describes initial research into the nature of…

Past research has examined middle adulthood as a developmental process with outcomes predictive of development into old age. A study was undertaken to explore adult psychological and career development from an ecological perspective taking into account factors that influence and modify self-perception, values, identity, and social interaction. A…

Conceptualization of the lives of adult women and the forces affecting their well-being have concentrated on five constructs: (1) chronological age; (2) menopause and the empty nest; (3) marital status; (4) parity; and (5) multiple role involvement as a source of stress. A re-examination of these variables focused on the concerns and…

Occupational status is a key component of identity and self-worth for men. But little research has been done on the influence of working status on women, particularly during life cycle transitions or periods of crisis. To examine the impact of employment status on the self-esteem, psychological well-being and physical health of women at mid-life,…

Use of the term "crisis" to define the midlife era suggests a limited sense of choice and control. The term "transition," however, emphasizes a process of change and suggests that the individual has both choice and power to grow and develop. An open-ended questionnaire was sent to professionals (N=42) in medical, psychological, sociological, and…

Midlife crises require different behavioral responses for women who have made decisions about marriage, motherhood, and career. For women experiencing midlife crises, assertiveness training has the potential to resolve conflicts. Assertiveness training (AT) consists of three components, i.e., skills training, anxiety reduction, and cognitive…

To help adults develop an awareness of midlife issues, to encourage personal acceptance of the transition, and to introduce appropriate coping skills, a speech communication course was designed that relied on river trip activities to develop insights about this passage. The vehicle for the seminar was a four-day raft trip down the Green River,…

Much research has focused on retirees and disengagement from prior work roles. One neglected variation is entry into second careers. Seventy persons, aged 50 to 87, who had retired from or left one occupation and taken up a second career selling their work at art and craft fairs, were interviewed. Respondents had held a variety of responsible…

The nature of employment in the United Kingdom has been changing significantly in recent years and a number of Government-led initiatives have been taken to help people to adapt to this. In particular, individuals are increasingly expected to take responsibility for their own training and development and employing organisations are being…

Undertrained workers, not dislocated workers, are the real problem in the American economy. The vast majority of the workers affected by structural change in the American economy appear to make employment transitions fairly swiftly and smoothly, with no need for public intervention. Undertrained workers, mostly employed and scattered in all…

Although prior research has shown the importance of income and health status in predicting the decision to retire before age 65, a systematic comparision of the relative importance of social pressures to other variables important to the retirement decision has not been conducted. In order to ascertain the usefulness of the behavioral intention…