Explaining age differences in women's emotional well-being: The role of subjective experiences of aging.

Our study examines explanations for the "paradox" of older women's better emotional well-being compared with younger women. We consider the role of subjective experiences of aging in a society that devalues older women. Using a sample of women (n = 872) from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (1995-1996 and 2004-2006), we examine the role of five components of the subjective experience of aging in explaining older women's better emotional well-being compared with younger women: age identity, conceptions of the timing of middle age, aging attitudes, aging anxieties, and self-assessed physiological changes. We find that, compared with women 50-54 years old, those 35-39 years old report lower positive affect, and those 25-49 report higher negative affect. These patterns are partially explained by younger women's greater anxiety about declines in health and attractiveness and older women's more youthful identities. Our study underscores the value of considering the implications of our ageist and sexist society for women's emotional well-being across adulthood.

Multiple "Old Ages": The Influence of Social Context on Women's Aging Anxiety.

Objectives: Dominant views of aging generate anxiety for many adults-especially women, who face greater disadvantages in later life compared with men. However, little is known about changes in these concerns over time and their variation across women. Employing a feminist perspective on age relations, our study examines three social contexts affecting women's aging anxiety-social location, health, and social relationships. Method: Using a sample of women (n = 905) from Midlife in the United States (1995-1996; 2004-2006), logistic regression models examine predictors of over-time patterns in three aging anxiety sources-declining attractiveness, declining health, and reproductive aging. Results: Women report more declining-health anxiety, and it remains more stable over time than do declining-attractiveness and reproductive aging anxiety-both of which tend to decrease with age. The effects of social context vary across anxiety sources; however, more favorable over-time patterns are often associated with more disadvantaged social locations (i.e., older ages, non-white, lower socioeconomic status)-but better health and social relationships. Discussion: Our study, the first to examine over-time patterns in aging anxiety, illustrates women's multiple "old ages"-a reality manifesting in not only objective conditions of later life but also perceptions of aging. It provides insight on social and cultural processes shaping aging perceptions.

Baby Boomers' subjective life course and its physical health effects: how distinctive is the "forever young" cohort?

We consider members of the "forever young" cohort's negotiation of aging by examining how shifts in their views of the life course and their location in it influence their physical health. Using OLS regression (Midlife in the United States, 1995-1996 and 2004-2006; n = 1,257), we compare Early and Late Baby Boomers' subjective life course, measured as age identity and timing of middle age, and its physical health effects with those of an earlier cohort, the Lucky Few. Contrary to expectations, the earlier cohort not only held more elongated conceptions of the life course at Wave 1 but also lengthened them more between waves than did Baby Boomers. Results also failed to support the notion of youthful conceptions having stronger health consequences for Baby Boomers. Examining more cohorts over longer timespans would illuminate how developmental aging processes intersect with sociohistorical contexts to shape the subjective life course and its health consequences.