AGING AND GENDER - VALUES AND CONTINUITY

Social science literature on aging has assumed without empirical basis that women experience greater continuity in their lives than men and that this is beneficial to women in the process of aging. This researc h explores the issue of continuity in values over the life course and the relationship of values to a sense of meaning attributed to one's l ife over the life course. Thirty life history interviews of men and wo men over the age of sixty-nine were conducted. Differences in values w ere found between men and women. Men experienced less continuity of va lues, less continuity in sources of meaning in life, and more dissatis faction in the process of life review, but for most men the lack of co ntinuity was not a source of dissatisfaction in old age.