Women in Midlife

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Grace K. Baruch, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

      Pages 1-8

3. Conceptual Approaches to Midlife

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 9-9

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   2. Life Events and the Boundaries of Midlife for Women

      • Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Barbara Kirsh

      Pages 11-30

   3. Methods for a Life-Span Developmental Approach to Women in the Middle Years

      • Margie E. Lachman

      Pages 31-68

   4. Middle-Aged Women in Literature

      • Carolyn G. Heilbrun

      Pages 69-79

4. Roles and Relationships

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 81-81

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   2. The Middle Years

      • Helena Z. Lopata, Debra Barnewolt

      Pages 83-108

   3. Multiple Roles of Midlife Women

      • Judy Long, Karen L. Porter

      Pages 109-159

   4. The Psychological Well-Being of Women in the Middle Years

      • Grace K. Baruch

      Pages 161-180

   5. Social Change and Equality

      • Diane E. Alington, Lillian E. Troll

      Pages 181-202

   6. The Daughter of Aging Parents

      • Ann Stueve, Lydia O’Donnell

      Pages 203-225

   7. Motherhood in the Middle Years

      • Vivian Wood, Jane Traupmann, Julia Hay

      Pages 227-244

   8. Black Women in the Middle Years

      • Jeanne Spurlock

      Pages 245-260

   9. Problems of American Middle-Class Women in Their Middle Years

      • Beatrice Blyth Whiting

      Pages 261-273

5. Enhancing Well-Being

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 275-275

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   2. Health Care and Midlife Women

      • Catherine DeLorey

      Pages 277-301

   3. Reproductive Issues, Including Menopause

      • Mary Brown Parlee

      Pages 303-313

   4. The Midlife Woman as Student

      • Nancy K. Schlossberg

      Pages 315-339

   5. The Anxiety of the Unknown—Choice, Risk, Responsibility

      • Rosalind C. Barnett

      Pages 341-357

The Study of Women In Midlife GRACE K. BARUCH AND JEANNE BROOKS-GUNN To describe the middle years-that relatively long span when one is neither young nor old-as a neglected period may no longer be accurate, given current scientific and popular interest in adult development and aging. But midlife is still too often seen merely as a kind of staging area on the way to old age, when one gathers one's forces and tries to stock up on assets-health, money, relationships-that will be needed for the rigors of the last phase of life. The middle years have been characterized more as a transition period than as a time of growth, satisfaction, and creativity. As this volume will show, although midlife is not without its difficulties, it is, for many women, a time of unexpected pleasure, even power. MAJOR THEMES A central theme of this volume is the impact of social change. The influence of economic conditions, of ideology, of the normative timing of such life events as age of marriage and childbearing, are addressed in many chapters from hlany different perspectives. Social changes are shown to have both negative and positive consequences. On the nega­ tive side, for example, the sex differential in life expectancy is a biosocial phenomenon that greatly restricts the availability of sexual partners-or, more precisely, heterosexual partners-for older women.

• age
• aging
• development
• growth
• health
• marriage
• menopause
• relationships
• sex
• sexuality
• women

• Wellesley College, Wellesley, USA

  Grace Baruch

• Educational Testing Service, Princeton, USA

  Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

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