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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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"I'm afraid that I'll loose my job before I retire"
— personal narratives about employment and the social structures of the life course | | Author(s) | Gerben J Westerhof |
| Journal title | Hallym International Journal of Aging, vol 3, no 1, 2001 |
| Pages | pp 55-80 |
| Keywords | Economic status [elderly] ; Redundancy ; Unemployment ; Employment of older people ; Retirement ; Attitude ; Social surveys ; Germany. |
| Annotation | The personal meaning of employment in relation to the social structuring of the life course is the main focus. An interdisciplinary, representative study of the German population in the second half of life was used to study the relationship between employment status (employed, unemployed, retired, home-making) and individual resources on the one hand, and the meaning of employment in personal narratives on the other. A sentence completion instrument elicited personal meanings of employment on narratives. Qualitative and quantitative analysis showed that those in the second half of life refer to existing social structures when they describe themselves and their lives; and that employment status, retirement age, gender, region and compensating leisure activities are related to the meaning of employment. The construction of meaning of employment is found to be a dynamic and intricate process taking place between individuals and social structures. The implications for narrative psychology and successful ageing, as well as for social structuralism and the reproduction of age-differentiated structures are discussed. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-020301208 A |
| Classmark | F:W: WI: WH6: GC: G3: DP: 3F: 767 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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