Aging and Resilience: Older Women’s Responses to Change and Adversity

• Main Authors: Cari L. Gulbrandsen, Christine Walsh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2015-11-01
• Series: Societies
• Subjects: aging; women; resilience; intersectionality
• Online Access: http://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/5/4/760

The primary objective of the qualitative study was to describe women’s resilience in older adulthood according to older women’s interpretations of their experiences and the contexts of their lives. Intersectionality and critical feminist gerontology served as theoretical frameworks for examining, interpreting and highlighted the dynamic nature of intersecting identities and the interrelationships between identity and contextual factors. Constructivist grounded theory methodology was used to identify themes that represent older women’s subjective interpretations of their experiences with adversity and to construct definitions of resilience based on their experiences. The aspects of identity that women in the study associated with their experiences of adversity and their resilience were age, physical and mental health, marital status and income. Women in the study emphasized how subjective interpretations influenced the meaning they associated with events, circumstances, or changes that accompanied aging and their understanding of the role of identities in those experiences.