Science / Medicine : Golden Women : Survey Counters Stereotypes, Finds Life Begins at 50 for Many
Picture a woman in her prime of life. She is healthy, lovely and young, poised to meet the challenges of motherhood and a brilliant career. Right?
Not exactly. According to a survey of college-educated women, conducted by two Bay Area psychologists, many women are at their best when they are in their 50s.
Contradicting the stereotype of the middle-aged woman--someone depressed by her empty nest, fading charms and infertility--many of the fiftyish women who were surveyed counted their blessings: They had greater financial security than ever before. They were healthier than they had been in their 40s, and expected to be in their 60s. They felt mature enough to capably make decisions and meet challenges. Because their children were away from home, the women had more time to themselves.
A majority of women find menopause a relief rather than a tumultuous transition in life, at least three studies have shown.
“Our findings are in sharp contrast to the image of early-50s women as buffeted by hormonal and interpersonal upheaval,” conclude authors Valory Mitchell of California School of Professional Psychology in Alameda and Ravenna Helson of UC Berkeley.
The survey results do not describe an entire generation of women--only those privileged to have attended a prestigious college. For other women, the authors and many of their colleagues point out, the 50s may be difficult and stressful.
However, the study does suggest that the 50s have great potential.
“It shows that these can be the best years of a woman’s life,” said psychiatrist David A. Baron, deputy clinical director of the National Institute of Mental Health. “Not every woman is going to feel that way. But the thing that determines (their attitude) is not age but a variety of other things, like health and socioeconomic status.”
The new data, published in the December issue of Psychology of Women Quarterly, a scholarly journal, lends support to a revised view of middle-aged women that is gaining acceptance among mental health professionals. They once assumed, with much of society, that women are at their best when they are most attractive and fertile; that is, during late adolescence. According to Sigmund Freud, focusing on personal appearance helped women cope with anxieties, and motherhood was the pinnacle of fulfillment.
Middle-age, on the other hand, brought menopause, which meant depression, according to the general view during this era. This depression was compounded, after the children left home, by loneliness and a lost sense of purpose.
During the last two decades, researchers began finding reasons to doubt these assumptions. In more than one study, middle-aged mothers reported that they do not dread their children’s departure; they look forward to it and enjoy the extra time and space.
Other research indicated that most women consider menopause a welcome change. It means an end to worries about birth control and pregnancy. It gets rid of a monthly nuisance. Also, it signals a shift away from maternal responsibilities.
Such studies, Helson said, suggested that the 50s “were not quite as bad as one thought.”
Yet, said Mitchell, many people continued to think of middle-age as a depressing time. Her personal observations suggested otherwise, prompting the study.
Mitchell and Helson asked 700 graduates of Mills College in Oakland (which admits only women undergraduates), ranging in age from 26 to 80, to rate the quality of their lives as first-rate, good, fair or not so good. Of those questioned, the women in their 50s were most likely to describe their lives positively. Half of them chose the term first-rate, while only about one-third of the younger and older women did. They were also least inclined to rate their lives not so good.
Women in their 50s were not as likely as younger women to work outside the home. About 43% had jobs, compared with 61% of those in their 40s. Nor were they able to earn as much money. Yet, they were still better off financially because their partners’ incomes were significantly higher.
Compared with younger women, the women in their 50s reported a keener interest in politics and social issues. They found their friendships to be more important and more satisfying, and they felt a greater overall joy in living.
In a second part of their study, Mitchell and Helson interviewed an additional 118 Mills graduates, all about the same age, when they were 43 and again after they turned 52. These women, too, at age 52, rated the quality of their lives highly. Again, about half said it was first-rate.
Most found that they had gained greater control over their lives during the previous decade in many ways: They were more selective about how they spent their time. They felt more satisfied with the things they had and less worried about what they might not get. They judged themselves better able to accomplish daily tasks without worrying about them. They felt more able to make decisions based on both emotions and rationality.
Women in their 50s, from both samples, also rated their personal health much higher than older women and slightly higher than women in their 40s.
Helson and Mitchell cannot explain why the women would report better health as they got older. They assume that it reflects the women’s general state of happiness. “It’s not as though they’re immune to health problems,” said Helson, “but they do seem to be in an optimistic frame of mind. It is very true that rating one’s health favorably is strongly related to rating life satisfaction favorably.”
What is more, said Mitchell, the women in their 50s who were interviewed were remarkably committed to taking care of themselves.
“They put energy into watching their diet, not smoking and not over-drinking, and they were getting exercise and going in for regular medical examinations.” This attention to health appears to be more common among women in their 50s today than it was a generation ago, Mitchell said.
Besides good health, there were two other variables closely correlated with general well-being: financial security and having no children at home.
“We don’t want to give the impression, as we sometimes seem to, that they’re glad to be rid of their children,” Helson said. “They still are very interested in them. They write for pages about them. But they feel pride at having accomplished one of their major tasks--raising them.”
Said Mitchell: “When children are successfully launched into early adulthood, women can sort of take a deep breath and sit back a bit and begin to think more about themselves.”
Future generations of women entering their 50s might not feel the same about this period of life. The women in the study generally bore their children before their mid-30s. Today, women are waiting longer to have families, which means the children will still be around when their mothers are in their 50s. This is apt to change the way women feel about their 50s, Mitchell said.
It is difficult to say what the difference will be, Mitchell said, because the age of childbearing is not the only aspect of women’s lives that has been changing in recent years. Today, many mothers work from the time their children are born, and some husbands are taking on a greater share of domestic responsibilities. “I’m not sure what this will mean (for women in their 50s),” Mitchell said.
Of course, even today, there are many women for whom the 50s cannot bring a new sense of freedom or control. For one thing, many women of this age find themselves in “the sandwich generation,” said Leah Dickstein, professor of psychiatry at University of Louisville School of Medicine.
These are the women who must work to support both younger and older family members, including so-called “boomerang children” who have returned home as adults because they cannot make it on their own, as well as frail parents or in-laws.
“These women don’t have so much freedom, or so much extra money,” Dickstein said. “They have excessive responsibilities.”
Because each woman’s experience is unique, some experts question the value of thinking of any age as best. The notion that the 50s are the prime decade, said Baron of NIH, might cause problems for women who feel differently about their lives.
While it is useful to challenge the stereotypes of middle age, said Carol Nadelson, professor of psychiatry at Tufts University Medical School in Boston, “the concept of ‘prime’ suggests that women have to meet some outside standard. In fact, some people feel the best they’ve ever felt when they’re 70.”
THE BEST YEARS OF THEIR LIVES
Percentages of 688 graduates of Mills College in Oakland (which admits only women undergraduates), by age, who rated life as “first rate” or “fair” or “not so good”. (Percentages who rated life as “good” are omitted. The few women over 78 are omitted.)
Life is “First rate” Life is “Fair” or “Not so good” Source: Psychology of Women Quarterly
