Gender and the Subjective Well-being of Widowed Elders

Many studies suggest that aging women have unique experiences in widowhood, which are different from those of aging men because of gender inequality. This study explored the 2014 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to discover whether gender influences the factors that affect subjective well-being of elderly widows and widowers (aged 65 and over). To look at subjective well-being, I used a feminist gerontological approach to explore possible gender differences and examined life satisfaction, a life satisfaction scale, and happiness, their corresponding predictive factors, and their importance for each of the measures of subjective well-being. This study found that there were gender differences in total household income and social support from friends. Although gender did not affect subjective well-being directly, there were gender differences in the ways that education, total household income, total wealth, and social support from children and friends affected the subjective well-being of widows and widowers.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Sociology

Department dc:contributor.department

Sociology

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Geng, Jing

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Calasanti, Toni M.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Kiecolt, K. Jill
• Zhu, Haiyan

• Aging
• Widowhood
• Subjective well-being
• Gender

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:21335

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/101093