Publication details
Role Overolad And Performative Void: On Social Roles of Third Age (poster)
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Citation | |
| Description | Background: The longer and healthier lives of young-olds are creating need for new social roles of older people and change of perception of “traditional” ones. At the same time, when social policies stress the socio-economically productive roles, many young-olds are performing various roles with different time and energy requirements in family and community. Usually these roles are studied separately or in simple dyads, such as the worker-care provider, but everyday praxis is based on almost simultaneous performance of the whole role set. What roles do young-olds engage in, how do they build their role-sets? Do they experience role-overload and what strategies they use to cope with it? Methods: We use mix methods to answer these questions: (1)analysis of representative survey „Life roles“conducted in 2014 in Czech population aged 50-70 years (N =730); and (2)qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with active ageing grandparents (N=23). Results: confirm that majority of young-olds perform various family roles, combining them with work, care provision and leisure. About 35% of the sample claims to be in the position of role overload, with roles of a worker and a patient being most often quoted as the primary source. Grandparent role is regarded as the one bringing most joy, but it is time limited, leaving “perfomative void”. Conclusions: The study of performance of the role-set considerably enriches the search for key to unlock the demographic dividend, as it provides deeper understanding of role overload experienced by active-agers and shows the function of performative void of selected roles. |
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