Women in the middle years

The purpose of this study was to define psychological well being in women aged 35 to 55, and to examine its relation to age, income, education, health, work, and family status. A disproportionate random sample (N=238) was selected to include women from the following four family statuses: never married, married with children, married without children, and divorced with children. All never married and divorced women were employed, as were about one-half of the married women. The employed women were equally distributed by occupational prestige (Siegel, 1971) into high, medium, and low groupings. Participants were all Caucasian, and were residents of a town in the greater Boston area. The response rate was 76%. Data were collected by personal interview. The structured survey instrument was developed empirically, based on content analysis of lengthy open-ended interviews about the rewarding and problematic aspects of the various domains of the participants' lives. These initial interviews are not available at the Murray Center. The structured interviews comprised scales with equal numbers of "reward" and "concern" items for each domain covered. Major domains included work, marriage, homemaking, children, and the self. Income and health were also assessed. The Murray Center has computer-accessible and paper interview data for 231 participants.