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This study was prompted by the negative images of midlife women portrayed in the literature and popular culture. Apart from a few accounts of extraordinary feats, which counter the generalisations about midlife women, for example, a 76 year old grandmother going sky-diving, there is very little written about midlife women living enjoyable, independent lives. This work presents a detailed analyses of the way in which thirty women have been able to, or are in the process of, actively structuring an enjoyable midlife. Previous research has tended to view aspects of women's lives in isolation, such as leisure, body, health, or work. The artificial boundaries that have arisen because of this separation reinforce societal notions of fragmentation within social life. This research was designed to challenge these divisions and, by investigating women's enjoyable experiences, to develop concepts that are common across the composition of these women's lives. A feminist phenomenological methodology was used and semi-structured in-depth interviews were undertaken to access women's lived experience of enjoyment, their lifeworld, and also to determine participants understanding of the concept of leisure and their experience of menopause. All interviews were transcribed and subjected to a systematic content analysis, as advocated by phenomenological research practitioners. The findings contradict the predominantly negative popular images of midlife women and show that most of the women in the study are in the act of resisting the earlier views of women and ageing. Their responses also indicate they tend not to recognise the fragmentation of their lives into work, leisure and health issues, but rather regard their lives as 'all together and not separated out'. An enjoyable lifeworld means being regarded as an individual and independent person and having 'a sense of being in charge', over their own time and space, making opportunities for physical, social, creative and intellectual activity, as well as preparing for the future. The thesis concludes with a discussion of how midlife women are creating enjoyable lifestyles. The concept of enjoyment and enjoyable experiences appear to defy segmentation, and the women are in the act of composing their own lives.

This PhD explores women's move from employment to self-employment, examining their experiences and perceptions of this transition. In particular, it focuses on the following five central research questions: <ol><li>How does the move from employment to self-employment fit in with a woman's career pattern more generally?</li> <li>How can a woman's decision to leave her organisation be understood theoretically?</li> <li>Why did the women in the study choose to embark on self-employment and what were their expectations in doing so?</li> <li>What factors most influenced a woman's experience of self-employment?</li> <li>To what extent did the women in the study identify themselves as entrepreneurs and what factors impacted on this identification?</li></ol> Implicit in the first question is an assumption that a woman's career transition can not be understood as a discrete moment or an isolated event; rather, it must be examined within the context of her developing career. The analysis illustrates that the move involves more than a "simple" change between career forms; rather, it is a much more complex transition, involving the balancing of often incompatible career discourses. In seeking to understand women's Career transition and development, the analysis emphasizes the importance of occupational identity, the focus of question 5 above. As regards the second question, in seeking to understand respondents' decisions to leave their organisations, it is necessary to examine both personal and organisational factors, not as a dichotomy, but as integrally related. Notably, gender emerges as significantly impacting on these decisions: in particular the implications of the ideology of the family for women's perceived roles and responsibilities. Turning to question 3, while for some the move to self-employment was experienced as a single decision, for others it was seen as two distinct, though related choices. Central to this analysis is the significance of family background, and gender. As regard women's fears and expectations, the analysis explores the notion of "risk", and examines the ways in which women's understandings of concepts such as "freedom" and "control" changed through their experience of self-employment. Considering question 4, those factors which respondents identified as having a significant impact on their experiences of self-employment, their previous organisational experience was seen as central. Also highly relevant were women's social networks: not only professional relationships and business partners, but also the important role played by husbands and families. Finally, permeating this analysis is the importance of both structural and agentic dimensions of experience in women's career transition. These dimensions, however, must not be seen as a dualism, but as a "duality" (Giddens, 1976, 1979, 1984; Bhaskar, 1975,1979, 1983). The thesis thus proposes a theoretical model for understanding women's move from employment to self-employment based on this dynamic interplay between structure and agency. Central to this model is the construction of occupational identity.

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