The natural environment is a dynamic context for human development, but current lifestyles and activities are threatening the quality and supply of natural resources, and changing the conditions of the atmosphere. Older adults in the United States have been called upon to contribute their energy to volunteer efforts aimed at improving environmental conditions, but little is known about how or if older adults would be willing to take part. Informed by place attachment and attention restoration theory, and guided by the life course framework of human development, the purpose of this qualitative investigation was to deepen understanding about how a nature trajectory is established and the factors that influence the relationship between humans and nature over time. Interviews were conducted with 34 older rural women who ranged in aged from 71 to 91 years old (mean age 79). Seventeen of the women were living alone and nine lived below the poverty threshold. Using grounded theory coding and analysis techniques, two major findings emerged from the data: the women valued nature for spiritual and psychological reasons, and nature was suffering as a result of a wasteful and destructive economic paradigm. Half of the women's nature trajectories changed over time; trajectories remained positive and stable for the others. As God's creation, the natural environment informed their sense of self and bolstered their psychological well-being. They cared about environmental problems, but were unaware of what they could do to help. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that predict quality of life (QOL) for aging adults and to examine and compare Baby Boomers', Older Adults' and Younger Adults' responses to the 2010 National Health Interview Survey/QOL Functioning and Disability. Significant findings included several significant values based on the multivariate regression to estimate a model to predict QOL. In particular, being male, four ethnicities other than white, being older than Boomer, age in 10 years, the Functional Difficulty Index, the Functional Limitation Index scores, chronic heart disease, asthma, and arthritis all had significant p values. Adults with chronic heart disease, asthma, or arthritis scored lower on the QOL index, but cancer, stroke, or diabetes were not associated with the QOL index. Two hypotheses had strong support. Lower scores on both the Functional Difficulty Index and the Functional Limitation Index yielded lower QOL scores. Further research recommendations include establishing reliability and validity of the QOL index; running additional regressions for demographics (ethnicity, marital status, etc.) to predict possible combinations of variables predicting QOL or barriers to QOL; and investigating the viability of incorporating the QOL index into an electronic medical record (EMR) dashboard parameter to serve as a screening mechanism for those aging adults most at risk for chronicities or co-morbidities that place them at risk for losing their ability to age in place in the home of their choosing.

Äldres psykiska hälsa är ett åsidosatt område och Socialstyrelsen efterlyserbehandlingsalternativ till medicinering. Flera studier poängterar dock att detsaknas forskning inom området psykoterapi med äldre. Syftet med studien är attundersöka frågor och livsproblem bland pensionärer som går i psykoterapi samtvad de anser är hjälpsamt vid kontakt med en psykoterapeut. En kvalitativ studiemed intervjuer har genomförts med fem kvinnor som valt att gå i psykoterapiefter pension. Kvinnorna var mellan 64 och 73 år gamla när intervjuernagenomfördes. Resultatet visade att fyra av de fem intervjuade kvinnorna ficknågon form av kris i samband med pensioneringen, och att de sökt upp enpsykoterapeut men att detta har skett av olika anledningar och livsproblem. Deanser att psykoterapi är hjälpsamt efter pensionering men menar att terapinbehöver anpassas till den äldres behov, ett synsätt som stöds av forskningen. / Health psychology among elderly is a neglected topic and social authorities ask foralternative treatment methods to medication. Several studies conclude there is alack of research regarding psychotherapy with elderly. Due to this, the aim of thepresent study is to examine the specific issues and life-problems that concernpsychotherapy attending seniors today, and what they consider as helpful intherapy. A qualitative research design was used with interviews conducted withfive women, who had all chosen to attend psychotherapy after retirement. Thewomen were between 64 and 73 years old when the interviews took place. Theresults showed that four of the five women had gone through some kind ofpersonal crisis in connection with their retirement. The women had all soughtpsychotherapy during the life span, due to a variety of reasons and life-problems.The women in this study think that psychotherapy is helpful after retirement, butthat the psychotherapy should be adapted to the specific needs that elderly peopledo have., which is in line with earlier research.

For parents caring for an intellectually or developmentally disabled child (I/DD), there can be many challenges throughout various life stages. While research has been shown to emphasize an abundance of services for parents of young children and adolescents with I/DD, there has been a lack of services for later life transitions within adulthood. Within this research, a brief literature review of what preparation and services have been provided to parents of adult children with I/DD in regard to non-parental care placement is provided. The following research discusses the various perspectives of the future planning process through interviews from participants who identify themselves as a primary caregiver of their adult child with I/DD and who are 45 years of age or older. This research also discusses the results, limitations, recommendation for social work practice, and research conclusion.

Paying specific attention to influences of life events and different timing of taking compulsory military service for Taiwanese people, this dissertation explores time-dependence of job mobility and class mobility throughout careers. The author criticizes that previous research of social mobility focusing on either differences between father’s and son’s classes or the relationship between one’s initial and current statuses do not realize the process of status attainment in which individual characteristics and life courses continuously interact with external structures in the labor market. The analyses in this dissertation demonstrate the dynamics of career mobility by specifying two career stages and investigating the differences in paces and mechanisms of job change and class mobility. All findings lead to the conclusion that the time dependence of career mobility is deeply embedded in the context of life course in a society. For Taiwanese men, the timing of taking CMS (i.e., before or after their first entry into the labor force), which is strongly correlated with their educational level, is crucial to the pace and type of career development. For Taiwanese women, their trajectories of mobility follow the typical scenario of career mobility in which job change happens often during the early career and then settles into relatively stable employment in the later stage. Compared to job mobility, status attainment is more stable and consistent throughout the life time. After specifying the directions of job mobility, results show that upward and downward mobility, which bring significant change in occupational prestige, do not show gender differences in their transition rates, and their patterns are consistent throughout careers. With respect to the transition between social classes, moving into ownership (including employers and self-employed) in later careers is a mainstream transition for all Taiwanese people in spite the fact that women have much lower transition rates than do men. Moreover, this dissertation also examines inter-sector and intra-sector mobility in segmented labor market in Taiwan. Taking selection bias into consideration, this research found that under the assumption of homogeneity, the treatment effects of initial attainment in the public sector have negative effects on job mobility throughout careers. However, when heterogeneity of treatment effects are taken into account, findings reveal that there is no significant heterogeneity in this treatment effect for Taiwanese men, but for Taiwan women, the more likely they are to attain a position in the public sector at the time of first entry into the labor market, based on their educational achievement and social background, the more they benefit via low transition rates of job mobility in their work lives. / text

This study examines the experiences of young adult women raised in non-resident father households in Tlokwe Local Municipality, North West. Focus groups and face- to-face interviews were conducted with 34 young women between the ages 18-25. Five important, nuanced themes emerged, these are: a) fathers who are physically present but emotionally absent, b) fathers who are physically present but uninvolved, c) fathers who are physically absent but involved, d) fathers who are physically present and involved and e) fathers who are absent and uninvolved. Non-resident fatherhood remains a challenge in the Tlokwe Municipality, most of the participants had never met their biological fathers. The study revealed the frustration young women feel towards their mothers and maternal grandparents for caring more about maintenance than they do about a healthy father-daughter relationship. The study further revealed a deep- seated need for close proximity and an involved type of fathering among the young women. / Sociology / M.A.(Sociology)

This thesis investigates the combination of changes in the population and employment into sectors in rural Sweden for the period 1960-2010. The aim is to describe and analyze the demographic changes together with the labour market changes, and to account for the spatial outcome of these changes by considering the heterogeneity of rural areas. The analysis departs from the framework of rural restructuring, where changes in employment and population in rural Sweden are interpreted as local products of the global processes of technological development, social modernization and globalization. Empirically, the analysis is based on a combination of longitudinal censuses and register data on the Swedish population covering the period 1960-2010. The first part of the aim is achieved by applying a life-course perspective and exploiting the longitudinal nature of the data. The life-course perspective distinguishes between historical time and the age of individuals, making it possible to situate changes in employment and migration on the individual level. The second part of the aim is achieved through developing a typology of rural Sweden by doing a cluster analysis on SAMS-areas. The results show that rural change after 1980 was characterized by de-industrialization and the rise of the urban service sector. The period was also characterized by regional urbanization rather than local urbanization. Peripheral urban and rural areas based on industrial employment found themselves with a declining economic motor, which meant that people had to find their source of income elsewhere. The migration stream in this period was thus increasingly directed towards metropolitan or large city centers, and their rural surroundings within commuting distance. However, the more fine-tuned spatial typology reveals that also a few areas in the rural periphery have experienced growth, these areas are mainly attractive places based on various kinds of tourism. It can thus be concluded that different rural areas have experienced, and will continue to experience, the shift from manufacturing to services differently, where some areas have grown in both demographic and employment terms while others have declined. In this sense the heterogeneity of rural areas are a product of both growth and decline – of old development paths that is reaching their end and of new development paths that will continue into the future.

This thesis explores the mobility intentions of refugees in Hofors. The aim is to apply the theoretical framework of the life course perspective and social network theory; evaluating their suitability in approaching the topic of refugees’ mobility intentions in the Swedish countryside. The research questions ask how the life courses, social networks, and the specific locality influences their mobility intentions. The empirical research is based on biographical interviews and participatory mapping with refugee migrants residing in Hofors and an expert interview with a municipal employee. The findings illuminate: the role and dominance of different life domains at different timings (e.g. importance of the work domain in the initial stages of integration), the function of social networks as a resource of information, and the social context offered by Hofors (facilitating certain resources) – indicating the central importance of this conjunction, between the needs of trajectories within certain life domains and the ability of the locality to satisfy these needs, in influencing the mobility intentions. The research is situated in the field of international migration to the Swedish countryside, focusing on how rural municipalities can retain more refugees, by addressing the issue from the perspective of refugee migrants.

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