Self-perceived age changes in sex role self concept

A prospective/retrospective study of sex role self concept was conducted in order to explore the hypothesis that adult men and women experience a convergence of sex roles in later life. Young (age seventeen to twenty-nine), middle aged (age thirty to fifty-nine), and older (age sixty to eighty-five) adults (twenty-one male, forty-one female in each group) rated themselves on Bem Sex Role Inventory items, first describing themselves at age twenty, next at age forty-five, and finally at age seventy. Self-perceived age changes in sex role self concept reported by these three groups of adults produced strikingly similar patterns. In each case, both men and women evidenced high masculine self descriptions related to middle age (projected age forty-five) followed by decreases in masculinity in later life (projected age seventy). Only the projections of middle aged respondents displayed even marginally significant evidence in favor of sex role convergence.