The Family Transition Blog

Aging: Are Widows Happier Than Widowers?

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As always, The New York Times' New Old Age blog posts a very interesting article, "With Friends Aplenty, Many Widows Choose Singlehood".  And, as always, the comments are even more interesting than the post itself!  While this post targets a discussion of aging, it raises questions that go much deeper about gender differences.

According to the post, widowers have it much tougher than widows.  Where many widows are happy to be "free" of their caregiving role, many widowers seek someone to care for them.  The comments raise some interesting questions:

• Is it just older men who are isolated, or middle-aged men too?
• Is this a generational thing, with younger men having been raised to take care of themselves, thereby less prone to a difficult "widowerhood"?
• Is the reality that there are so many more widows than widowers that the women simply realize that it is highly unlikely that they will re-couple and thererfore make their own lives and that this is all just rationalization?
• What's the role of economics in this whole matter?

I'd love to know YOUR thoughts.  Please leave a comment here and tell us what you think.