living alone in old age: : institutionalized discourse and women's knowledge

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LIVING ALONE IN OLD AGE: Institutionalized Discourse and Women’s Knowledge Paul C. Luken Arizona State University West Suzanne Vaughan Arizona State University West We examine the social organization of “living alone” using both the narratives of el- derly women and the academic, professional, and popular cultural textual discourses in which ideological practices are organized about this manner of living and housing. Using institutional ethnography, we examine the organizing practices of living alone through an analysis of the gender and class relations in the institution of housing. We argue that housing regimes are the work of those involved: ordinary people, builders, developers, bankers, psychologists, gerontologists, social workers, foundations, fed- eral employees, demographers, and magazine publishers. The work activities are ordered; successfully or not, by culturally standard idealizations of old age relevant to the ideologies of the various participants in the housing regime. Such practices make,women’s own knowledge invisible and authorize the housing regime to define and ameliorate the situation of living alone, especially with respect to the mainte- nance of “independence” under contemporary capitalism. We examine the social organization of “living alone” using both the narratives of elderly women and the academic, professional, and popular cultural textual discourses in which ideological practices are organized about this manner of living and housing. Dorothy E. Smith (1987; 1993; 1999) argues that social practices producing textual discourse trans- pose the actualities of women’s lives into social scientific and policy categories-linking women’s consciousness to extra-local social determinants and subordinating women’s experience to the discourses and practices of domination. These practices construct liv- ing alone as a social object and produce “independence” in speech and text that intends a course of action. Explicating the concept of “living alone” and the ideology of inde- pendence are keys to understanding the organization of gendered and classed relations within the housing regime. We use the experience of elderly women as the basis for a critique of housing prac- tices related to knowledge of living alone. Our inquiry uses institutional ethnography Authors’ names are listed alphabetically. Direct all correspondence to Paul Luken, Social and Behavioral Scizncea. Arizona State University West, P.O. Box 37100. Phoenix, A2 85069-7100: e-mail: [email protected] The Sociological Quarterly,Volume 44, Number 1, pages 109-131. Copyright 0 2003 by The Midwest Sociological Society. All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2ooo Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223. ISSN: 0038-0253: online ISSN 1533-8525

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LIVING ALONE IN OLD AGE: Institutionalized Discourse

and Women’s Knowledge

Paul C. Luken Arizona State University West

Suzanne Vaughan Arizona State University West

We examine the social organization of “living alone” using both the narratives of el- derly women and the academic, professional, and popular cultural textual discourses in which ideological practices are organized about this manner of living and housing. Using institutional ethnography, we examine the organizing practices of living alone through an analysis of the gender and class relations in the institution of housing. We argue that housing regimes are the work of those involved: ordinary people, builders, developers, bankers, psychologists, gerontologists, social workers, foundations, fed- eral employees, demographers, and magazine publishers. The work activities are ordered; successfully or not, by culturally standard idealizations of old age relevant to the ideologies of the various participants in the housing regime. Such practices make,women’s own knowledge invisible and authorize the housing regime to define and ameliorate the situation of living alone, especially with respect to the mainte- nance of “independence” under contemporary capitalism.

We examine the social organization of “living alone” using both the narratives of elderly women and the academic, professional, and popular cultural textual discourses in which ideological practices are organized about this manner of living and housing. Dorothy E. Smith (1987; 1993; 1999) argues that social practices producing textual discourse trans- pose the actualities of women’s lives into social scientific and policy categories-linking women’s consciousness to extra-local social determinants and subordinating women’s experience to the discourses and practices of domination. These practices construct liv- ing alone as a social object and produce “independence” in speech and text that intends a course of action. Explicating the concept of “living alone” and the ideology of inde- pendence are keys to understanding the organization of gendered and classed relations within the housing regime.

We use the experience of elderly women as the basis for a critique of housing prac- tices related to knowledge of living alone. Our inquiry uses institutional ethnography

Authors’ names are listed alphabetically. Direct all correspondence to Paul Luken, Social and Behavioral Scizncea. Arizona State University West, P.O. Box 37100. Phoenix, A 2 85069-7100: e-mail: [email protected]

The Sociological Quarterly, Volume 44, Number 1, pages 109-131. Copyright 0 2003 by The Midwest Sociological Society. All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2ooo Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223. ISSN: 0038-0253: online ISSN 1533-8525

110 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Vol. 44/No. 1/2003

and begins with the subjects as knowledgeable participants in their work and experiences of living alone. From this standpoint we discover lines of fault between the women’s experience and the textual discourse. Furthermore, we provide a sociology for elderly women living alone through an explication of the social relations in which this manner of living is embedded.

We contacted five women, who lived in the Phoenix metropolitan area at the time of the interviews, through acquaintances and former students. All of the women were at least sixty years of age and had “lived alone” for at least six months. After an initial con- tact we interviewed the women in their homes on at least four occasions for approxi- mately two hours in 1992-1993. We taperecorded and transcribed approximately ten to twelve hours of conversation with each woman. Our interviews focused on their housing experiences throughout their lives.

We begin with two ordinary statements about sheltering in old age to show how speech and text concert living alone and independence as activities articulated to the wider gender and class organization of housing as a regime. Contrasting these narratives creates a window into the social organization of older women’s everyday housing, the subject of this article.

You see there’s a lot of us that are like that really, that are independent yet. They get to a point sometimes where they can’t. Where they can’t do it. And some of them have to have someone come and stay with them as a companion, or something like that, to take care of them. I had a girl call me yesterday. She’s had trouble for as long as I know. Back trouble and stuff like that. She has somebody that comes in, maybe she comes in the morning, and does whatever needs to be done around, she’s not even there a whole day, I think, with her. Alice can’t drive anymore, so somebody has to drive her when she goes anywhere. She says her son gets onto her because she won’t have somebody, she won’t have somebody stay all night with her, and she says, “I don’t need somebody staying there all night. I go to bed and that’s it.” (laughs) Okay, Alice. And she goes around in a walker all the time now. (From an interview with Thelma Hay.)

Nearly all of the elderly live in independent households. . . . [However] there is a striking difference in the household composition of elderly men and women, reflect- ing differences in marital status between the sexes. In 1989, elderly women were about 2.5 times as likely to live alone as men (40.9 versus 15.9 percent), whereas almost three quarters (74.3 percent) of all aged men were married and living with their wives. Only about four in ten elderly women (40.1 percent) were married and living with a spouse; . . .

The proportion of the elderly living alone is increasing. In 1965, for example, 29.9 percent of aged women lived alone, as compared with 40.9 percent in 1989. In addi- tion, the proportion of older men and women who live alone increases with age. This seems to be chiefly the result of the increasing number of widows among the elderly and of the fact that more elderly persons today can afford to live alone than in the past. Among men. the percentage living alone increases from 13.3 at ages 65 to 74 to 32.6 among those 85 years and over. Among women, the percentage living alone increases from 33.5 at ages 65 to 74 to 54.5 at ages 85 and over. The high proportion of the very old living alone does not portend well for them. The very old (85 years of age and older) also show a high risk for institutionalization; 27.7 percent of women and 17.0 percent of men 85 years and over live in homes for the aged (1980 figures). [Dlata from the National Health Intcrview Surveys do suggest that a shared household may

Living Alone 111

act as a protection when circumstances preclude maintaining an independent house- hold. (Kart 1994, p. 413)

Thelma Hay, the teller of the first story, and her friend, Alice, live in ways that were rare among previous generations of women in the United States. Like many other el- derly women, they live alone.They are pioneers who are living new everyday/everynight experiences of sheltering. In the process of their housing work of living alone, both talk- ing about it and doing it,Thelma and Alice are participating in the social organization of knowledge about sheltering and living alone. The second story, taken from the textual discourse on aging and housing, not only documents the rise in the proportion of elderly women living alone but also constructs for us a different type of knowledge of living alone. Cary S. Kart, the author of the text, speaks from the conceptual discourse of the social sciences, particularly social gerontology. In the practice of producing knowledge of living alone, he writes “living alone” as a social category correlated with marital sta- tus, gender, age, and risk of institutionalization. In contrast, Thelma Hay speaks from experience. Her story tells about some of the activities and social relations in which el- derly women engage: arranging for transportation, getting about with a walker, resisting the advice of her son, dealing with paid homemakers and caregivers, and being inde- pendent. Her narrative also alludes to traditional patriarchal discourses on women’s physical and moral vulnerability and contemporary capitalist discourses linking aging, independence, and living alone.

While Thelma, Alice, and Kart all have knowledge of living alone in later life, these knowers are embedded in different social relations within the housing enterprise. While “independence” and “vulnerability” are themes in both narratives, the textual discourse, as the “official facts,” defines what is knowable and relevant and powerfully shapes women’s knowledge of their own experience. The ideology of independence and vulner- ability is a practice in language that is realized in housing.

THE TEXTUAL ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE A N D LIVED EXPERIENCE

A distinctive feature of contemporary society is that textual discourse mediates rela- tions between active, creative subjects and the market and productive organization of capital (Smith 1993). This discourse appears as objectified forms; however, as Smith (1993, p. 160) indicates, discourse can be examined as “actual social relations ongoingly organized in and by the activities of actual people.” A sequence of coordinated activities beginning with the extra-local textual production and distribution practices of organi- zations extends to local settings as people talk about discourse, do work to produce the textual image of the discourse, and make decisions about their lives. In the process, the relevancies of those authoring the texts transcend the local historical setting and become points of reference for people. Investigating the textually mediated discourse of living alone and independence involves examining how older women organize their activities in relation to the discourse, their skills and practices, as well as describing how social relations mediated by the discourse of independent living operate and are operated.

In the textual discourse, “living alone” is commonly conceptualized as one value of the variable “living arrangements” or “household composition.” We see this in the writ-

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ings of social scientists, government documents, and popular and professional literature. We turn to this literature to examine the textual organization of knowledge of living alone.

Since Emile Durkheim, social scientists have written about living arrangements and the consequences of living alone. Following this tradition, researchers have investigated the relationship between this variable-as an independent variable-and indicators of health status, social isolation, mental illness, depression, functional ability, use of psychi- atric, medical and social services, and so on (Anson 1988). “Age” became an additional variable in the equation for social science researchers in the United States with the pub- lication of the 1950 U.S. Census of Housing. This marked the first occurrence of tables devoted to the elderly population and concurrent breakdown of the older population by living arrangements. Furthermore, during the growth of gerontological research in the 1980s and 1990s, investigators linked the outcomes of living alone with the study of adult life and the elderly. While gerontological researchers have focused largely on the pos- sible dire consequences of living alone, such as an increased risk of loneliness, institu- tionalization, depression, suicide, and so on (Anson 1988; Jylha and Jokela 1990; Roy, Ford, and Folmar 1990; Dean, Kolody, Wood, and Matt 1992), others have examined liv- ing arrangements as a dependent variable. These researchers conclude that a greater proportion of women live alone in later life than do men largely because of men’s higher mortality rate and the practice in the United States of women marrying somewhat older men (USBC-NIA 1993). They also explore the factors involved in household composi- tion choice: culture (race/ethnicity), economic resources, kin availability, and health status (Wolf and Soldo 1988; Mutchler 1990; Wolf 1990; Zsembik 1993). Results of this research are commonly found in popular texts and reference books in the social science of aging (Soldo 1986; Regnier and Pynoos 1987; Golant 1992; Barrow 1996; Pynoos and Golant 1996).

In the United States the state has consistently been concerned with the collection, assessment, and compilation of the facts of household composition and age. The state finances this endeavor through its requests-for-proposals. In Figure 1, for example, a National Institute on Aging (NIA 1984, p. 49) announcement seeks “studies which improve the representativeness and reliability of data . . ., including studies to sharpen current definitions of the household by delineating new types of living arrangements Improved methods for interviewing and obtaining valid and reliable data for persons with limitations of hearing, vision, memory, or comprehension.” Further in this announce- ment, the NIA requests sociodemographic studies on the distribution and projection of living arrangements of older Americans in relationship to “proximity of surviving kin” (ibid.) as well as studies that examine “factors affecting institutionalization and use of services” (p. 50), including living arrangements and the physical characteristics of hous- ing units. Concurrently, the state has been involved in the direct assembly of data through its various agencies, principally the U.S. Bureau of the Census Population and Housing Surveys and the biennial American Housing Surveys. Innumerable reports are produced from these data (Katsura, Struyk, and Newman 1988; USBC 1991; Naifeh 1993; USBC-NIA 1993). These data also contribute to the construction of the housing discourse by policy makers through hearings and publications of reports for committees of the U.S. Congress (U.S. Senate 1991; US. House of Representatives 1992).

In addition to the state, private foundations, such as the Commonwealth Fund, AARP Andrus Foundation, Del Webb Foundation, Flynn Foundation, and United

living Alone 113

ANNOUNCEMENT

THE OLDEST OLD

P.T. 341 K.W. 040w02,0701013, owmi, warn, O ~ O I O I ~ , O ~ O I O I O . 1201230

THE N A n O N N INSTITUTE ON AGING

1. BACKGROUND AND GOALS

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) invites qualified researchers t o submit new and supplemental applications for research projects which focus on the.oldest old- those over age 85. Although the over age 85 population Is still smali in absolute numbers (about 2.6 million), i t Is forecast t o be the fastest grcwing segment of the wpulation for the period 1980-1990. For the last several decades the over age 85 population has been growing at almost three times the r a t e of that of all persons Over age 65. While comprising only one percent of t h e total U.S. population today, this segment is projected t o rise t o 1.9 percent 0 miiliod by the year 2000, and 5.2 percent by 2050 (16 million). ASarmptioM abwt the future direction of t h e mortality rates of this a g t group powerfully influence these projections.

The oldest old a r e very substantial users of health care and other services. While about 6 percent of those aged 75-84 a r e institutionalized, the r a t e for those over age 8S is about 23 percent. The 1979 National Health Interview Survey data showed that in just the non-institutionalized elderly, the need for help from another perron in one or mare activities of daily living increased substanlially. Seven percent of those aged 65-71 required help as compared t o 16 percent for those aged 75-84, and t o over 40 percent for those over 85, This gradient was even steeper in t h e female population, which greatly m t m m b e r s the male population at older ages. If the current utilization rates for health and other services for this age group are extrapolated simply as a function of the projected growth of the oldest old population. then the implications for society a r e considerable.

The Federal Government provides, by some estimates, $51 billion in major benefits t o those 80 and m r . Yet, at aImmt all Iwelt , from the demographic t o t h e physiologic, less is known about this age g r w p than about any other. For example, federal statist ics rarely p r w k k detailed information on those over age 85. l h r lack of knowledge a b w t the oldest old results from a number of factors. Until recently their absolute numbers have been small, the available data have often been perceived M be of low quallty, and this age group has been COlltidered difficult t o study.

This program is described in t h e Catalog of Federal DmestiC A r r l s t a m No.13.866, Aging Research. Awards will be made under the authority Of thc Public Health Service Act Section 472, 42 USC 2891-1, and administered under PHS grants policy and Federal Reiulations 42 CFR Par t 66, Zd Public Health Service Act, Title 111, Section 301 (Public Law 78410, as amended; 42 USC 241) and administered under PHS grant policies a d Federal Regulations 42 CFR Par t 52 and @5 CFR Par t 75. This p r q r a m is not subject t o the intergovernmental review requirements of Executive Orper 12372 or Health System, Agency review.

FIGURE 1. REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (Reprinted with permission from National Institute on Aging 1984, p. 48)

Parcel Service, sponsor research and demonstration projects on the housing of the elderly. In Figure 2, two programs sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on Elderly People Living Alone note that (1) “The section of America’s elderly population in greatest need today may be those who live alone. More than one in three elderly people now live alone, including more than half of all women over 75. By every indicator of well-being, members of this group face much more difficulty than the average elderly person,” and (2) “Many elderly people are at substantial risk of being moved perrna- nently from their homes because they cannot secure the broad range of services to help them remain at home once their functioning has been limited” (CF 1987, pp. 8-9).

Living alone as lived experience, however, often challenges the objectified meaning presented in the textual discourse as illustrated by the first woman we interviewed,

114

HEALil--I RELATED ~~~~~~~~~ IN PROGRESS The Fund staff is engaged in a continuous process of i d e n t i i and developing specific opponunities to support and foster. Because resources am limited, the Fund’s Board and staff can explore only a few such opportunities a1 a time.

In developing programs, the Funds staff listens to and works with diverse pmfassionals and concerned citizens Theu ideas and experience are vital to the selection and refinement process.

Many of the opportunities being pursued are managed outside the Fund by professionals working on these issues. In turn, these individuals rely an the wisdom and advice of colleague.$ who serve with them as membcrs of a task force, commission or advisory committee. Such decentralized management provides the small staff of the Fund the flexibility needed to focus m i a variety of selected problems at any one time.

Those who direct Fund-wyported programs seve as !ha equivalent of adjuoct staff :o the Fund‘s president and staff-. Final responsibility for examinlng opportunities, developing programs, funding projects and appraising results remains with the Funds staff and B o d

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THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Vol. 44/No. 1/2003

Listed below, under the three major program themes, are brief descriptions of the programs in process that have adjunct staff m w m e n t In each case, a detailed prospectus is available from the program director nr the Fund. In some cases, the application period far a particular propam has been completed.

A. Program Title: The Commonwealth Fund Commission on Elderly People Living Alone

The Problem: The section of America’s elderly population in greatest need today may be those who live alone. More than one in three elderly people now live alone, including mom than half of a11 women over age 75. By every Indicator of well-being, members of this group face much more difficulty than the average elderly person.

The Response: In 1985, the Fund pledged almost $5 miilion over three years to improve tbc well-being of elderly people livlng alone by reducing their isolation, improving their home and health care, increasing lheir purchasing power and

8

examining public policies that could help them. This program will renew applications h u g h March 1988.

Contact: Karen Davis, Ph.D., Program Director The Commonwealth Fund Commission

on Elderly People Living Alone T h e J o h HopkiM Unluenfy

824 North Bmadway, Rwm 482 Baltimore. MD 21205

Schwl 01 Hygiene & Public Health

3. Program Title: The Living-at-Home Program

The Problem: Many elderly people are at substantial risk of being moved prematurely from their homes because they cannot secure the broad range of services necessary to help them remain at home once their functioning has become limited.

The Response: In 1985. the Fund joined with other private foundations to sponsor and develop a $7 million pmgmm to help community organizations develop, coordinate and deploy services that can help frail elderly people continue to live at home. tn the summer of 1988, the program made grants of up to %35O,WO each to these organizations in 19 communities. The application period is closed.

Contact: Morton D. Bogdonoff, M.D. Program Director The Living-at-Hnme Program The New York HajpitelCornsll M e d i d Cwbr 525 East Bath Straet, New York. M I 10021

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FIGURE 2. REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (Reprinted with permission from Commonwealth Fund 1987, pp. 7-9)

Edna Kepler. She was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1923 into a large family. Her mother was a housewife and her father was a circuit preacher and a school custodian. She spent most of her early life in Akron living in various rented houses and apartments with her family. She married shortly after World War I1 and the Keplers subsequently had four children. Her husband drove a delivery truck for a major department store in the Akron area. During this time Edna worked on and off and eventually became the manager of a Christian bookstore, which enabled her to earn enough money to send her kids to col- lege. After all of their children left home, Edna, her husband, and her widowed mother- in-law rented a small bungalow in 1980. While living there, her husband died, and she moved her mother-in-law into a foster home. For a short time she lived with her son and daughter-in-law. Then she moved to Phoenix with her daughter, and she currently lives in an apartment that her grandson occasionally shares.

Prior to being interviewed Edna Kepler pointed out that she might not, in her words, “technically live alone.” She added that her grandson, Andy, works for the phone com- pany, work which keeps him out of town most of the time. Yet he spends one or two weekends a month at Edna’s apartment. She was quick to point out that she does not

Living Alone 115

depend on Andy for anything: “Hc could move out any time. It would be fine with me. My work would be lighter. It’s kinda hclpful to him right now ’cause I’m totally indepen- dent from him and it’s a help to him right now trying to get started. He’s got high insur- ance, high truck payments, and you know, and so. And by him being out of town so much, it’s not like someone’s under my feet all the time.” Her relationship with her grandson suggests to her that the complexity of her housing experience is not easily cat- egorized. Edna’s account points to the disjuncture between the ideology of living alone and her lived experience, and she brought this problematic to our attention. AS we inter- viewed other women about their experience of living alone and refined our critique, the category used by the U.S. Census Bureau, researchers, social workers, and others unraveled.

Ursula Roberts was born in 1917 in Newcastle, Pennsylvania. Her father worked as a sales manager for several car dealerships. Her mother was a housewife, taking care of Ursula and her sister, but she opened an exclusive children’s shop when she became a widow in 1940. In 1938 Ursula married A1 Roberts, who went into the insurance busi- ness and became a prominent executive with a major company. They had two children and resided in several cities in Ohio and Pennsylvania and in Los Angeles. A1 remained in the insurance business until his heart attack precipitated retirement in 1978. They moved to Sun City, Arizona, where they lived together for eight years until Al’s death.

Ursula Roberts describes a time when she lived in Los Angeles by herself after her husband,Al, was recalled to Ohio: “ I did not go for six months. I flew back and forth and he flew out too, but for six months I was out there by myself because we couldn’t lcave the house because it was a situation and a burglar could come in and just wipe US out.” Once their house sold she joined A1 in Ohio to resume living together. Her experience highlights the gender and class relations embedded in corporate work organizations that separate husbands and wives for periods of time during people’s work 1ives.The housing enterprise ignores the “episodic nature of women’s lives” (Smith 1987, p. 97) and con- structs sheltering as an atemporal, universal category.

The third person interviewed was Olive Jackson. She was born in 1905. Her father was a rancher and “conducted” a hotel in a small town that no longer exists. She grew up on various ranches and was lodged and boarded in Evanston, Wyoming, so that she could attend high school. In 1926 Olive married a railroad checker, and they lived in a company house about 125 miles from her family’s ranch. Although she was married for about eight years and had a son, she lived with her husband for only two of those years. She and her son moved to Riverside, California, and after her divorce, she worked for Fuller Brush Company in sales as an office worker and as a staff member for the Insti- tute for Religious Studies. When she moved to Phoenix in the early 1960s, she was diag- nosed with muscular dystrophy (MD), and she now lives in an efficiency apartment.

Olive Jackson contends that she knows something about living alone from her early marriage when she was bedridden over one winter: “1 was confined to bed for about six months because I had acute pleurisy. They thought I had TB. That was the way I was diagnosed. So I was put into bed and had to stay there. That was all winter long and I had to stay there alone. My husband came home at night and fixed me something to eat. And I had a dear friend who came down in the morning about 9:30 or 1O:OO and gave me a sponge bath and fixed me a bite to eat for lunch. My husband was working nights. He was working from 4:OO in the afternoon to 12:OO at night. 1 was alone all day and all night, too, in bed. And I learned a lot about living alone.” Researchers classify her

116 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Vol. 44/No. 1/2003

experience as “living with spouse” because of the assumed role relations in marriage; Olive’s words tell us that one can live alone when gender and class relations organize the exigencies of work of spouses and neighbors.

A similar situation occurred for another participant in the study, Thelma Hay. Thelma was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1911. Her mother was a housewife, and her father was a handyman and hardware store employee until the Great Depression. Throughout her youth, Thelma’s family lived mostly in apartments and with her grandparents. She attended a business college and worked as a secretary until shortly after her marriage in 1938. The Hays had four children. They moved to the Phoenix area in 1951 because of her husband’s health. Thelma worked as a bank teller and later as a secretary for differ- ent businesses when her husband was not working. He found work as a furniture sales- man, in personnel, and later in real estate. She was working at the time of her husband’s death in 1984 and continues to live in their double-wide mobile home.

Thelma Hay says that she lived alone when her husband was hospitalized prior to his death: “There wasn’t a big transition, in a way, because he was in the hospital and I would go to the hospital to visit and I’d be home alone, so I took him to the hospital and I left him there. I was home alone again. It just worked that way.” In each instance the women recount experiences that challenge the construction of living alone in the textual discourse .

The lack of fit between the narratives of living alone by these four women and the textual discourse is not simply a technical problem to be resolved by improved methods of data collection, as we show above, in the call for proposals released by NIA and the Commonwealth Fund. It is an ideological move that transposes and subdues the women’s knowledge to the categories of the textual discourse. The descriptions of el- derly women living alone in the textual discourse are not merely partial, incomplete, or discordant accounts of everyday life. Rather their significance lies in the relationship of the textual discourse to the organization of the administrative bureaucratic apparatus. As noted by Adele Mueller (1995, pp. 103-104), “This is a political terrain on which the official apparatus claims power as the principle actor and subordinates women to its in- terest and intentions. . . . [The housing enterprise] does not conceal or justify power; it accomplishes it. Such categories are integral elements in how bureaucratic procedures go forward, how state apparatuses operate, and thus how the governing of societies is carried out.”

Transforming women’s experience into policy categories activates bureaucratic pro- cedures of control. In this process women become accountable to the categories of the administrative apparatus, rather than the reverse. We see this in the life of Nita Rod- riguez, who was born in the state of Sonora, Mexico, in 1920. She had five half-brothers and -sisters who were several years older. Her widowed mother supported the family as a seamstress, and Nita did not know who her father was. Older brothers who worked in the mines in southern Arizona and Mexico also supported the family and Nita often lived with them. Her mother died when she was nine, and Nita returned to the United States where she completed the seventh grade. In the 1930s, due to a lack of work in the mines, the entire family returned to Mexico to a ranch owned by an uncle. In 1939 in Mexico she met and married Tony Rodriguez, a U.S. citizen who was in the brickmaking business. They returned to the United States and eventually had four children, but in 1958 her husband was killed in a construction accident. After her children grew up

Living Alone 117

and left home, Nita lived mostly by herself. She currently lives in an apartment with a Section 8 rent subsidy.

Nita Rodriguez moved in with her daughter and son-in-law at one point after her house was burglarized. At the time she qualified for Section 8 housing assistance; how- ever, the underlying requirement to receive the subsidy was that she could no longer live in the same household with them since the household income would be too high. It was necessary for her to move to a new apartment by herself Nita made herself into someone who fit the state bureaucratic categories.

Similarly, the popular literature in reproducing this discourse about living alone and independence in old age connects with dominant practices of subordination and control. Here, living alone is written as a social phenomenon correlated with independence. adjustment, depression, risk of institutionalization, use of services, need for assistance, economic resources, functional ability, kin availability, and so on. Journalists, practi- tioners, policy makers, and advocates for the elderly transform older women living alone and their children into a gendered social problem to be addressed, managed, com- modified, and profited from within taken-for-granted capitalistic economic arrangements.

Life tells the story of Meredith McKendry (Figure 3). “Eight years ago, soon after her father died, Robyn Klapperich realized that her mother, Meredith McKendry, then 73, could no longer live alone. Robyn (an only child) and her husband, John, a municipal water supervisor, bought a house in Marin County, Calif., with a separate mother-in-law apartment. ‘Mom wanted her independence,’ says Robyn, now 46, a secretary in a private school. ‘She said she didn’t want a bedroom in my house, but if she had her own place, fine”’ (Fineman, Mason, and Dowling 1993, p. 31). The authors describe Meredith’s mental and physical deterioration, her move to her daughter’s home, and her eventual move to a nursing home.

Among certain practicing professions, such as social work and nursing, “living arrangements” appear on intake and needs assessment forms. Practitioners use the cate- gory as an indicator of someone “at risk” or in need of specific health or social services. A recent article in a human services journal summarizes the role social workers should play in creating supportive housing environments for the elderly: “First, they can encourage aged residents to accept and receive services that will enable them to live independently. Second, they can collaborate with housing managers to create respon- sive housing environments for their elderly tenants” (Ivry 1995, p. 76). Additionally, elderly people living alone are viewed as a market for “alternative housing” by architec- tural, construction, and money lending organizations. Brochures from seminars for these groups announce, “The unprecedented demand for facilities and services to meet the special needs of older persons is creating new opportunities for design professionals and developers” (U W 1989; Figure 4). Advertising its “Senior Housing Seminar,” the Mortgage Bankers Association of America highlights, “Learn what you need to know to be on the cutting edge of this dynamic market” (MBAA 1989; Figure 5). The curriculum summary in the “Seniors Housing MARKETING Specialist Program” includes sessions on marketing strategies and campaigns “to bring the community to market,” “creating a sense of urgency” among elderly consumers, and “buyer retention” (NAHB n.d.). Finally, several companies that provide “assisted living” are rapidly expanding, as are the number of assisted living centers (Diesenhouse 1993; Nordheimer 1996).

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Living Alone 123

alone exists in relation to other values of living arrangements and other variables in equations. In describing what counts and does not count as “living alone,” the textual discourse, as the “official” knowledge about elderly women living alone, tells us of a generalized, shared experience of women. The textual discourse diverges from a sociology for women that explicates living alone as a way of living, with actors embedded in social relations. According to Thelma it includes “keeping busy.” She observes, “I kept busy, I kept busy. . . . And the minute I wasn’t working again, I went right up to the hospital to see about being a volunteer. They gave me an application to fill out and T did that and that was in the summer, and I couldn’t do anything. It didn’t start until the first of Octo- ber for that.And then went right on.That was something else I had to do.”Although she has not lived with her children since 1960, she says, “We’re still family. I mean, the kids and I still get together and do things. They’re on their own and I’m on my own, you know, and everything like that, but, I mean, we’re doing things. My daughter and I are going out to a party tomorrow night. I’ll see her tonight and I’ll see her Wednesday night. We do things that are together, I mean.”

For Ursula living alone includes finding assistance for taking care of the finances:

Well, as soon as my husband died, he [our investment broker] didn’t want me any- more. In the meantime my son became an investment broker, along with his insur- ance, and I think he thought that I would do everything with my son; however, I would not do that. So I, he had a young man working for him, in fact I just had lunch with him today. He left him and he opened his own place, a financial place, and he called me up and said he’d take me on for a year without any charge. He thought it was a terrible thing this man did to me. And so I’ve been with him ever since. And he does a real nice job for me, and helps me, you know, I don’t do things on my own. You have to have somebody that knows the business a lot better than I do.

Ursula emphasizes that she was prepared to take on other responsibilities also. When talking about replacing a roof after her husband died, she remarks, “I could have gone another year without having it done, but being by yourself, you don’t want to take a chance that it’s going to start leaking and some big storm come along.”The one area of difficulty for Ursula, however, is the dating scene: “The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is one place, is socially by myself. That’s the biggest adjustment I’ve had. I don’t like going places by myself, socially, where there’s other husbands and wives. Now I don’t mind going, if another man will go and he can be with me, that’s fine. But I don’t like to go by myself. And I’ve been very fortunate and usually have someone to go with. And I, I don’t want to get married again.”

Olive tells us that she works at avoiding family members and coordinates shopping, going to the doctor, and arranging transportation with others. Edna comments on going to church, working, doing things for her grandson, making plans, and engaging in activi- ties with her children. Nita tells us that living alone necessitates searching for housing that is safe and affordable and deciding what to do next. Each of these women talk

FZURE 5. CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT, FINANCING SENIOR HOUSING: ISSUES, OPTIONS & ALTERNATIVES

(Reprinted with permission from Mortgage Bankers Association of America 1989)

124 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Vol. 44/No. 1/2003

about the work they do regarding the maintenance of themselves, their dwellings, and their chattels: shopping, cooking, cleaning, repairing, and protecting.

The work activities of these women, indeed, the lives that they lead, occur within economies dominated by twentieth-century U.S. capitalism. The social relations that coordinate their work are class relation5 which give shape to the conditions of their lives-their possibilities, intentions, constraints, and struggles. The social relations involved in Ursula’s having her roof repaired, having her yard maintained, golfing, dat- ing, and meeting with her financial adviser are class relations It is the same for the social relations involved in Nita’s search for safe housing and applying for a Section 8 rent sub- sidy, and the social relations that keep Olive living in her studio apartment because no acceptable alternative is available to her. They are the conditions and practices of their lives as they live them now, and they are the consequences of the class relations in which they have been actively embedded throughout their lives.

Furthermore, their oral histories direct us to their emotional work of maintaining themselves living alone. For example, Ursula talks about the grieving work she does:

I had a terrible time right when A1 passed away, the first few months, I was so busy taking care of getting things changed around and doing up the trusts and doing up the wills again and doing up everything, that I didn’t have time to be real lonely, and then after that things sunk in and I cried a lot. I cried a lot, but I kept going. I started right away back playing golf, and 1 know a lot of people thought that I didn’t have niuch feeling, but they didn’t know me.

I went to church when A1 was living. We went to church. After A1 died, I just could not go to church anymore. I started to go after A1 passed away because I was used to going to church and just, it just hurt too much, so I just didn’t. I just did everything. Did away with things that hurt. And it’s just like going down there-he’s down at Sunland [cemetery]-and I just can’t bring myself to go down there. I avoid even going down the street. . . . ’Cause every time I went down I cried. You know. It hurt and I was just making myself ill. And yet at the same time I was dating a lot and I was going out and having a good time, but that’s still not the same as having my dear Al.

She also deals with her critics at the country club who, she believes, perceive her as not acting appropriately for an elderly widow.

I’ve been criticized, I know, for years. My husband didn’t pay any attention because he knew me. I can be friends with a man without being romantically inclined. I like him as a friend but I wouldn’t want to go to bed with him. You know what I’m trying to say. That’d be the last thing in the world I’d want to do. And I had lots of men- friends. A lot of our friends, menfriends, their wives were friends of ours. They’d stop in just to say “hi” as they were going by, or something, you know. I thought nothing of it at all. I just didn’t think anything about it at all until someone started to talk, and I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that they were talking, because I’m just not that type of person.

And it’s just the same way with the club up here, my gracious, and I go.You know it was just like last Sunday, one of the men up the club called me and said, “HOW ’bout meeting me for breakfast this morning?” So I said, “Sure.” So, and he’s a guy I’ve dated off and on. And uh, I went out to dinner with him a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday, and so I went up and he said, “Walking in on Sunday morning, so I suppose everybody thinks we slept together all night.” But that’s the way the country club talks, and I don’t.

living Alone 125

Nita speaks of her work of trying to figure out what to do next for herself, of coming to terms with her fears after a burglary, and contending with her ghostly husband’s dis- approval. “I think I cherished that thing about being able to do things for myself without anybody telling me don’t do this and this and that and that. In fact, after he passed away, for many years, I looked to see if he was there, you know. He would disappear. Every- thing I did with apprehension.” On the other hand, Thelma tells us that the emotional work of living alone involves “thinking good thoughts” and avoiding surprising transitions.

Edna tells about struggling with codependence, being a tag-along, and the loneliness of living by herself because she was from a big family. She notes, “I don’t like living alone, necessarily. I was from a big family and I got married and had children. I could live alone for a little while but I don’t know how long. It gets pretty lonely. I think that’s why I don’t mind Andy home on weekends. It sort of breaks it up. Sometimes the eve- nings just, by the time I get home from work and have my dinner over and watch a little TV, I just go to bed. And I’m tired by that time anyway. I’m not a socializer, I don’t go around anywhere. I don’t dance like a lot of people do, and I don’t go and play cards anywhere. It’s just not my interest.”

When the work that elderly women do is made invisible by the categorical approach, that work does not count. Invisible work is not recognized, rewarded, compensated, or supported, even though it is often necessary for the “visible” work to occur (Diamond 1983; 1992). While the invisible work of elderly women living alone is unrecognized, the work of the rulingladministrative apparatus is constructed as valuable and meaningful. Our reading of the textual discourse reveals the importance of the work activities of researchers, politicians, social workers, and other professionals in clarifying and resolv- ing “the social problem” of elderly women living alone. Organizational courses of action calling for studies, congressional hearings and publications, the creation of markets, and work on the part of professionals to make older women accept and receive services are mandated in the textual discourse. The textual discourse makes elderly women living alone a problem for the ruling apparatus to manage, and this work is supported and compensated. The existing social and economic inequalities are unchallenged, and the problems that women have with social conditions are ignored (Gibson 1996).

Our reading of the textual discourse on elderly women living alone indicates that it is often linked to the ideology of independence (or independent living). These discourses are united through their focus on managing, organizing, coordinating, and profiting from the elderly population living alone. Many writers equate living alone with indepen- dence for elderly, unmarried people.

The women’s narratives reproduce and challenge these schemata in different ways. Often they take up the “language in text” directly. For example, Edna speaks of living alone as one aspect of independence, but she does not equate the two. Although she knows she is welcome in her children’s households, Edna says, “I’ve made it clear to all of them that I just want to be independent as long as possible.” Later she adds, “James and Sheila, you know, they would love it if I would come and live with them. But I just feel much more independent. I feel like, you know, ten years down the road if I had to live with somebody, that’s okay. But right now I’m just not quite ready for that. I feel better about myself if I could be independent, and I think most people would.” During the times she lived with her adult children she always paid room and board: “I paid them, I always felt independent enough to pay my own way.”

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One of Edna’s reasons for living alone relates to her experiences of a clinging mother-in-law. She says, “So after going through that I’m just not sure I would really want to impose on my children. Although I hope, I don’t know if this sounds right or not, I don’t think I’m the same personality as my mother-in-law. Everybody’s different. Inasmuch as my husband was the only child, her only child, and I was like her daughter, she clung to me. With my children, there’s more of them, it doesn’t have to be that sort of a thing, and I’m a different type of personality. So I think all of those things enter.”

Olive, similarly, does not connect independence with her living arrangements. On the one hand, she denies that she is independent because she relies on other people to assist her due to her physical limitations. On the other hand, she notes that she has a trait that must keep her going: “I can’t figure out how I could be so independent and be so ill. I couldn’t stand it if I didn’t have something to take me out of an impossible situa- tion (agitated). 1 don’t know. I guess I have an indomitable will of some kind. It would have to be pretty strong or I wouldn’t be here.” Thus, while independence involves gen- der and class relations in old age for Edna and Olive, they simultaneously refute this notion. Much like the professional literature on housing and old age, they describe courses of action as functions of their personality and ascribe independence as an attribute of people.

Ursula views independence in terms of being able to take care of herself in contrast to the men she dates who want someone to do their cooking, laundry, and other stuff. Her narrative points to the ongoing gendered relations of the twentieth century to which she is still subject. She remarks, “And I have gone with so many men that they want to get married. They lose their wives, and I can understand this. A man loses his wife and he’s been uscd to having someone do his washing, his ironing, his cooking, and whatnot .”

Nita and Thelma use dominant discourses on independence in their talk and in their sequence of action, concluding that independence is living alone, but in doing so articu- late the power of gender and class relations to organize their lives to date. Nita describes above how she became a Section 8 client and how living alone is not being told what to do or having to account to anyone for her actions. Thelma notes that independence is living without a companion in one’s home, especially overnight, while avoiding a son’s scolding for doing so.

Living alone and living independently take on specific characteristics for elderly women under contemporary U.S. capitalistic social relations. In the textual discourse, both elderly individuals and families are treated as economic unit% as consumers of hous- ing stock and related services. The ideology claims that through the purchase of specific housing and services one also acquires independence. Within this discourse, bankers and developers, by proposing, building, and marketing assisted living centers, are engaged in creating new ways of living alone and in transforming the meaning of independence. Independence is thus transformed into a commodity by the capitalistic housing enter- prise; one is as independent as one can afford to be. Eli Lilly and Company sells inde- pendence to older women through purchasing a drug therapy (Figure 6). Similarly, Baptist Hospitals and Health Systems sells independence through a conjunction of housing and health care (Figure 7). The state is complicit in the development of this ide- ology through its policies and practices that have fostered private over public housing, ownership over leasing, and the private financing and construction of housing since the New Deal. Additionally, specific housing policies have been established that are targeted

Living Alone 127

FIGURE 6. ADVERTISEMENT FOR EVISTA, ELI LlLLY AND COMPANY (From Modern Maturity, January 1999, p. 130.

Reprinted with permission of Eli Lilly and Company)

to the elderly population, and the state continues to organize and coordinate the elderly as a housing market through research funding.

Capitalistic social relations are lived out in elderly women’s activities and are evi- dent in their talk of housing arrangements Each of the women’s housing situations is constituted through social relations, locating them differentially as consumers of inde- pendence and housing. Ursula Roberts owns her three-bedroom, detached house in an “active” retirement community and purchases gardening, maintenance, roof repair, and assistance with financial management of her assets. Nita Rodriguez, after being on a

128 THE SOCIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY Vol. 44/No. 1/2003

FIGURE 7. ADVERTISEMENT FOR CHRIS RIDGE VILLAGE APARTMENT COMMUNITY

(From The Arizona Republic, September 18, 1997, p. B3)

waiting list for a long time, was finally able to rent a one-bedroom apartment with Sec- tion 8 assistance. The apartment complex provides full-time security and some transpor- tation. Thelma Hay is purchasing a two-bedroom, double-wide mobile home located in a suburban mobile home park and pays an association fee for space rental and security. Olive Jackson lives in a one-room efficiency apartment with one window overlooking a parking lot. She does not go out much and relies on dial-a-ride, taxis, and friends for anything not within a couple of blocks of her apartment building. Edna Kepler rents a two-bedroom, second-floor apartment near her family and a shopping center. She does not like being a renter and considers buying her own home where she could paint the walls and plant flowers.

The individualism and familialism found in capitalist practice resonates in how el- derly women speak of their housing situation and independence. These ideologies are evident in both what the women say and in what they do not say. On the one hand, they do not speak of independence as a group or collective phenomenon, nor do they men- tion “interdependence” when speaking of their manner of living alone. On the other hand, whenever speaking of some option to the current living situation, their choices are always expressed in terms of familial relations, that is, either remarrying or moving in with children, grandchildren, or siblings. Their narratives echo the textual discourse on “kin availability” as an alternative to living alone.

Three of the women comment on how remarriage or living with family members are undesirable alternatives for them. Olive notes that she’s “had enough of that” when she

Living Alone 129

speaks of remarrying and that she was a “nuisance” when she stayed with her sisters and brothers: “Nobody wants an extra person in their family. Why should they?” Edna says that she could live with her children; however, she states, “I feel better about myself if I could be independent, and I think most people would.” Earlier in Edna’s life she felt that her mother-in-law was an imposition in her household. One of Ursula’s concerns regarding remarriage is that she would become the financial supporter of her spouse, something that she refuses to be.

The ideology of independence, generated in different settings (in research, professional seminars, popular magazines, advertising), coordinates the talk of these five women, their actions, and the actions of their friends, family members, and others. The ideology makes invisible gender and class relations with which elderly women actually struggle in their daily lives. It instructs women that they are defective-nuisances, traitors to their men, burdens, and morally weak individuals without will-if they do not live alone and are not independent in old age. Furthermore, it authorizes the power of the housing enterprise to act and make decisions on behalf of those who are “defective,” but more importantly, it reinforces gender and class hierarchies within the housing regime.

CONCLUSION

By problematizing living arrangements and living alone, we explicate the practices of elderly women living alone and the way in which texts are constituents of these social relations. Each woman’s narrative of the activities of living alone in her historical, localized setting magnifies the fault lines between this textually mediated discourse and the everyday/everynight experience of living alone. Although the women we inter- viewed are largely ambivalent about the official discourse on independence and living alone, they are knowledgeable and expert practitioners of it in spite of only indirect con- tact with the organizations and agencies that produce it. They read about it in maga- zines, see it in advertisements and television and discuss it with friends, family members, coworkers, and researchers such as ourselves. For the women we talked with, living alone involves knowledge, resources, competence, and effort as they negotiate the orga- nization of gender and class relations in the discourse on independent living and use it as a point of reference, despite widely varying local settings and economic and social circumstances.

The textual discourse on housing organizes, generalizes, and aims to manage the lives of elderly women living alone under capitalist arrangements by incorporating them and other family members into current socioeconomic relations. But one should not miscon- strue the discourse as having an overriding power to determine the processes of living alone in local settings and to see this power as essentially at the sole disposal of the var- ious agents of the housing enterprise. The relation between textual discourse and local practice is not causal. Rather, older women are active, skilled, deliberative, and decisive. They are neither duped nor foolish (Smith 1993, p. 203). Older women in their everyday world make choices among alternatives-of living alone, with family members, in assisted living centers, and so on-yet they are excluded from the ruling relations that establish these options and maintain gender and class relations in housing.

The interpretive schemata of academic, professional, and cultural discourses are used to assemble facts and account for the “actuality” of elderly women living alone. The descriptions of this category are based on the describers’ knowledge of the manner in

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which categories are used: thus, descriptions are essentially determined by the social organization of the describers rather than the social organization of those they purport to describe (Smith 1987; 1993). They are a virtual reality. yet they are factual within the information systems of housing.

Frustrations and contradictions experienced by older women living alone are re- garded in the official discourse as individualized problems rather than as features of the contemporary social organization of housing and the discursive practices surrounding independence. It is on this basis that programs, housing projects, sales campaigns, and public policies are designed and implemented that greatly effect older women’s lives. Not only does the textual discourse isolate and name women living alone as suffering from the “problem” of old age, but it authorizes government bureaucracies service pro- viders, and private corporations to be the holders of the solutions through the products and services which they can provide (Mueller 1995). Constructing older women living alone as a social problem reinforces ruling relations and reorganizes the political bases of social action by disassociating women from class and gender relations organized extra- locally, and it ignores older women’s everyday competence in living alone in a society organized through class and patriarchal gender relations.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported in part by a grant from the Arizona State University West Summer Research program. We thank Kath Weston, Tim Diamond, Carol Mueller, the editor of this journal, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on ear- lier drafts. We also gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the women quoted in this article.

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