Successful ageing of Australian Baby Boom career women: preliminary findings from the Far North Queensland Focus Group

Worldwide attention is currently focused on ageing as the massive baby boom cohort move into their later years. The objective of this research is to address the structural lag in societal adaptation of a rapidly greying population by investigating the psychosocial processes of constructing quality of life (QOL) judgements of Australian baby boom career women. This paper will report the preliminary findings from three focus groups conducted in Far North Queensland, the initial stage of a three-stage project. Sixteen employed, or recently retired, participants were encouraged to discuss primarily subjective wellbeing factors perceived as being essential to ensure successful ageing, such as purpose and meaningfulness in life, spirituality and existential wisdom. Results of thematic content analysis uncovered five emerging themes: generativity, continuity of self accomplishment, spirituality, autonomy and unknown caregiver roles. Australian baby boom career women's voices will be used to inform the development of a conceptual model and measure of psychosocial wellbeing that is unique to this cohort. By investigating this cohort now, before or as they begin to retire, may ensure that policy can be in place for these women to construct the most beneficial and meaningful roles in their transition to retirement, if indeed they do retire.

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39th Annual Conference of the Australian Association of Gerontology

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0-9758311-2-x

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