The major specific aim of this proposed research is to examine the processes by which elderly widowers have reorganized their lives some two to six years after the death of a spouse. The focus will be on individuals' subjective understanding of what has transpired in their own lives and therefore on continuity and change in personal meaning. A large component of subjective understanding can be conditioned by cultural and ethnic (sub-cultural) meaning. As a consequence, aspects of life reorganization are expected to be influenced by ethnic content, meaning and values. Life reorganization is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct, which presents challenges on social, psychological, and experimental levels.
The aim of the proposed 36-month study entails two major methodological tasks. The first is an in-depth examination of the lives of 15 non-remarried elderly widowers from each of three ethnic groups (Italian, Irish, Jewish; N=45) two to six years after the death of a spouse. Data on recovery from bereavement, identity reformulation, subjectively-discerned states of reorganization, changes in everyday life and other areas will be gathered through a series of five open-ended and semistructured interviews with each informant. The second is a comparison of features of life reorganization of non-married elderly widows and widowers of the three ethnic groups, two to six years after the death of a spouse. Structured interviews will be held with 25 men and 25 women from each of the three groups. Findings from this research will provide significant descriptive data, from the subjective point of view, on the lives of older men and therefore on the genesis and history of some health related problems often associated with bereavement for men. Data will be gained on how loss is overcome and adapted to, on how life is reorganized, and on the relative importance of ethnicity and gender in key life events; this information, including data on coping skills and caregiving needs of older men, will be of use to service providers.
