[Critical life change events and adjustment in a group of elderly single women]

Women that were children or adolescents during World War II have rarely been studied in psychological and sociological research. Because of the death of over 3.5 million German men in that war, there remained many single (especially, never-married) women of corresponding age. In a research project at the University of Münster some psychological and social aspects of the life situation of never-married, employed women born between 1919 and 1933 in comparison to married women of the same age that had never been employed were studied by means of detailed interviews. Parts of the results concerning the retrospective experience of critical life events and coping strategies are described. The results indicate that the interviewees were confronted with difficult life events, but that they coped with them in a very active way. Differences between women of different martial statuses (e.g., for the never-married women a more frequent mentioning of events concerning the war, a higher involvement in personal health problems, a lower importance of their occupation than expected by the authors, and, for example, for the married women a higher family-centeredness) are discussed.