THE FULFILLMENT OF CAREER DREAMS AT MIDLIFE - DOES IT MATTER FOR WOMENS MENTAL-HEALTH

This paper examines whether a woman's mental health at midlife is affe cted by the degree to which her earlier career aspirations have been f ulfilled. Two dimensions of mental health ave considered. depression a nd purpose in life. Based on data for 3,499 female respondents to the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS), the results indicate that women wh o have fallen short of their earlier career goals suffer from lower le vels of purpose in life and higher levels of depression, even after co ntrolling for social background, human capital, family, and health cha racteristics. For purpose in life, the harmful effects of falling shor t of one's goal attenuate considerably when current family characteris tics are controlled. For depression, the harmful effects of falling sh ort of one's goal decline considerably once health characteristics are considered Although women who aspired to be housewives evidenced lowe r levels of purpose in life at midlife than women with work aspiration s, this difference was not statistically significant once human capita l characteristics were controlled Women who, at age 35, ''did not know '' what they hoped to do in the future had significantly lower levels of purpose in life in their 50s, even after controlling for social bac kground, human capital, family, and health characteristics.