MIDDLE AGE:
VOCATIONAL AND FAMILY ADJUSTMENTS
- Centers around work and family
- Has greater effect on women
VOCATIONAL ADJUSTMENT (thrown out of work to give way to young adults)
- Sex differences in vocational adjustment
- Men reach vocational success in status and income.
- When unsatisfied
- Tends to change job
- Line of work
- Vocational instability
- Ending of responsibility for the support of the children.
- Realization of declining opportunity to change job.
- Women has lesser chance of being hired, increased salary and promoted than men
- True in all except “women fields”.
- Elementary school teaching, nursing, beauty culture and other similar jobs.
- Less desire to stay in the same job and tends to career.
- Assessment of vocational adjustment
- Achievement
- Success in terms of
- Income
- Prestige
- Authority
- Autonomy
- Based on what he had hoped for during his younger days.
- Women fail to achieve vocational success for those who stop working after marriage.
- Satisfaction
- Little chance for adjustment.
- Nearing compulsory retirement.
- Pressure of work due to aging.
CHANGED WORKING CONDITIONS THAT AFFECT MIDDLE-AGED WORKERS
- Unfavorable social attitude
- To old to learn new skills to keep pace with the young adults.
- Uncooperative in their relations with coworkers.
- Absenteeism due to failing health.
- Hiring policies
- Companies believed that maximum production can be achieved by hiring young workers.
- More economical because of the high amount of retirement pension unlike the young adults.
- Increased use of automation
- For those who have low intelligence.
- Training for specific lines of work only.
- Health that causes them to work more slowly.
- Group work
- Training puts stress on their social adjustment.
- Role of wife
- As husband becomes successful; wife tends to become successful in his own field (community affair).
- Compulsory retirement
- Dominance of big business
- Workers of small companies that had been merged to large ones feel that they have no place for them in the new organization.
- Relocation
- Moving to new location assigned to sustain the job (managerial)
CONDITIONS INFLUENCING VOCATIONAL ADJUSTMENTS IN MIDDLE-AGE
- Satisfaction with work
- For those who work for the family rather that the line of job they like
- Opportunities for promotion
- Vocational expectations
- Assess their achievement in light of his earlier aspiration
- Increased use of automation
- Boredom and lack of pride in their work.
- Possibility of losing job
- Nervous
- Unwillingness to retain
- Attitude of spouse on:
- Status
- Low pay
- Far from home
- Attitude towards big business
- Attitude toward coworkers
- For those who resent the treatment they receive from their superiors or their coworkers
- Relocation
CONDITION CONTRIBUTING TO VOCATIONAL SATISFACTION
- Achievement of goal set earlier
- Satisfaction of family members on the achievement
- Opportunities for self actualization
- Congenital relationship with coworkers
- Satisfaction with the treatment from the management
- Satisfaction with the provision given by the company
- Security on the job
- Relocation
ADJUSTMENT TO CHANGED FAMILY PATTERNS (withdrawal of children from the family and taking care of aging parents)
Women are more affected
· Physical and attitude changes due to aging and loss of reproductive function
Men can compensate changes by deriving added satisfaction from work
Marriage disenchantment
o Lack of vocational success
§ Strains of family life
§ Unfavorable attitudes of family members towards his work
o In women, they feel disenchanted when she;
§ Feels useless after her maternal responsibilities\
§ His husband is more consernd about work
Adjustment to changed roles
· “Empty nest” period
o When children leaves home
o Depends on the size of the family
§ Smaller has greater effect
§ Threat when the expected child is not successful
o Difficulties for those who hane/are:
§ Few outside interest (only to her children)
§ Overly protective and possessive parents
· Adjustment to spouse
o Dependent again upon each other for companionship
· Sexual adjustments
o Increased after “launching stage”
o Poor sexual adjustments are due to:
§ Difference of sex drives
§ Men is concerned with loss of sexual vigor
§ Women develop more interest in sex
§ Last chance to conceive
§ Little satisfaction from coitus
· Adjustment to in-laws
o Children’s spouse
o Taking care of aging parents
§ Conditions affecting adjustment
· Role reversal
· Place of residence
· Degree of responsibility
o If considered burden
· Relationship of aging parent to middle-aged person
o If parent or an in-law
· Role played by elderly parents
o If able to help to chores and not burden
· Sex of elderly parent
o Men cause less work and interfere less than women
· Earlier experiences with elderly parent
· Attitude toward elderly parents
Deprived of opportunities for new interests when both
· Adjustment to grand parenthood
o Roles played by grandparents
§ Formal role
· Hands of policy
§ Fun-seeking role (without responsibilities)
§ Surrogate-parent role
§ “Reservoir of family wisdom” role
§ Distant figure role
CONDITIONS COMPLICATING ADJUSTMENT TO CHANGED FAMILY PATTERNS IN MIDDLE-AGE
- Physical changes
- Menopause and climacteric
- Loss of parental roles
- Lack of preparation
- Feeling of failure
- Feeling of uselessness
- When parental role diminished
- Marriage disenchantment
- Care of elderly relatives
ADJUSTMENT TO SINGLEHOOD (single, widowed, divorced)
- Unmarried are adjusted to being single
- Women are realistic that it is harder to have a spouse at forties
- Men find it more advantageous to be a bachelor
- Problem of single women are:
- Employment and vocational advancement
- Expected to take care of elderly parent
- Financial, physical and emotional burden
A Good Example of Middle Age. My Parents On Their 40s. Celebrating Love and Life Together.
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