Freedom and Autonomy in Old Age: Ruptures and Transitions in the Lifespan

Liberdade e Autonomia na Velhice: Rupturas e Transições no Curso de Vida

Libertad y Autonomía en la Vejez: Rupturas y Transiciones Durante la Vida

Abstract:

Achieving autonomy is not limited to the individual sphere; it implies broader social transformations that challenge gender stereotypes and value the experiences and knowledge of older women. This study aimed to identify signs of ruptures caused by widowhood and transitions that affect the autonomy and freedom experienced by women, as opposed to men. This qualitative study examined 32 older adults, most of whom were women. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed using a microgenetic approach that links individual episodes with macrosocial conditions related to social practices. Gender issues played a significant role in the subjective construction of life cycles for both men and women, including in old age. The results of this research call for careful attention from different sectors of society, especially academia, to produce knowledge and interventions aimed at social transformations that guarantee women’s freedom.

Keywords:
personal autonomy; old age; human development; gender perspective

Resumo:

A conquista da autonomia não se limita à esfera individual, mas implica transformações sociais que desafiem os estereótipos de gênero e valorizem a experiência e o conhecimento das mulheres idosas. O presente estudo teve como objetivo identificar indícios de rupturas ocasionadas pela viuvez e transições que repercutem na autonomia e liberdade das vivências de mulheres em contraste com vivências dos homens. Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa, com 32 pessoas idosas, na maioria mulheres. As entrevistas semiestruturadas foram analisadas a partir de uma abordagem microgenética, interligando episódios individuais a condições macrossociais relacionadas a práticas sociais. Questões de gênero demarcaram espaço significativo na construção subjetiva, perpassando todo o ciclo vital de homens e mulheres, inclusive na velhice. Os resultados convocam um olhar atento e interessado dos diferentes setores da sociedade, especialmente da academia, para produção de conhecimento e intervenções voltadas para transformações sociais que garantam às mulheres o direito à liberdade.

Palavras-chave:
autonomia pessoal; velhice; desenvolvimento humano; perspectiva de gênero

Resumen:

La conquista de la autonomía no se limita a lo individual, pues implica transformaciones sociales que desafíen los estereotipos de género y valoren mujeres viejas y su experiencia y conocimiento. El estudio tuvo como objetivo identificar indicios de rupturas ocasionadas por viudez y transiciones que repercuten en la autonomía y libertad de las vivencias de las mujeres en contraste con las de los hombres. Es una investigación cualitativa, con 32 personas mayores, en su mayoría mujeres. Las entrevistas semiestructuradas fueron analizadas desde un enfoque microgenético, interrelacionando episodios individuales con condiciones macrossociales relacionadas con prácticas sociales. Las cuestiones de género demarcaron un espacio significativo en la construcción subjetiva, atravesando todo la vida, incluso en la vejez. Los resultados convocan una mirada atenta de los diferentes sectores de la sociedad, especialmente del mundo académico, para producir conocimiento e intervenciones dirigidas a transformaciones sociales que garanticen para mujeres el derecho a la libertad.

Palabras clave:
autonomía personal; vejez; desarrollo humano; perspectiva de género

The aging process is unique and multifaceted. The experiences of each older adult person are related to the greater or lesser physical well-being they enjoy and are also affected by their living conditions and personal and social resources, whether financial, informational, intellectual, or emotional (Neri, 2006). Such experiences are constructed over the course of their history, in which various agencies have occurred, including choices of paths and decisions made from possible options, not always aware that these paths reflected multiple contexts, including the socio-historical matrix, which configures the network of meanings of each moment, at each stage of life (Rossetti-Ferreira et al., 2004). Therefore, paths are unique, but they are not random. There is no predictability, but there are “thin lines” that reflect continuities and conditions that are not immune to conflicts and ruptures that emerge in specific life conditions (Zittoun, 2009; Zittoun & Baucal, 2021).

In this aging process, autonomy is a crucial aspect for the quality of life and well-being of older people. More specifically for older women, the achievement of autonomy is not limited to the individual sphere but implies broader social transformations that challenge gender stereotypes and value the experience and knowledge of older women, as we will demonstrate in this study. The dichotomy between autonomy and dependence in the aging process is often discussed in contexts that problematize physical and mental health factors for performing certain activities and using everyday tools (Ribeiro et al., 2022), or discuss the psychological and social resources of older people (Fontes & Neri, 2015).

Freedom and autonomy in old age deserve to be highlighted when discussed in contrast to the isolation/dependence binomial; these are themes perceived as central axes in sociogenetic, ontogenetic, and microgenetic dynamics, whose understanding is essential for the study of human development, especially aging (Zittoun & Baucal, 2021). These themes are intertwined with many others that give them contours and specificities. For example, in our capitalist, racist, and sexist society, the experiences of black women involve issues of gender, race, class, and territory, which imply differences in their subjective constitutions and social organizations (Silva & Carneiro, 2023).

The lifespan paradigm, theorized by Paul Baltes – a German psychologist (1939-2006) whose scientific work contributed to changes in the view of old age – understands development as a continuous process from birth to death, multidimensional and multidirectional, as it involves the articulation of genetic-biological factors, sociocultural factors, normative influences (graded by age or history) and non-normative influences (of a biological and social nature), also considering the gains and losses, predictabilities and unpredictabilities in each person’s trajectory as part of this process (Neri, 2006).

In old age, social interactions and networks remain essential to the ontogenetic course, which continues to be traversed by the interdependence of biopsychosocial factors, with multiple and indeterminate limitations and possibilities (Rossetti-Ferreira et al., 2004). Thus, the relevance of life purpose and prospects stand out as important symbolic resources for older people at the microsocial level. And from a macrosocial perspective, the life course of older adults must be articulated with everyday situations of interaction in material and social environments and with possibilities for accompanying rapid social transformations through inclusive, participatory, and dialogical intergenerational actions promoted in society (Zittoun & Baucal, 2021).

Based on an understanding of human development related to continuity, regularity, but also interruptions, reorientations, and transformations throughout the life course, Zittoun (2009) proposes an analysis of life trajectories based on ruptures and transitions. The rupture, which can be caused by an intra-individual process or an external event, consists of an interruption of what was experienced as continuity; it represents a crisis and can only be named as such based on the person’s own meaning. The rupture triggers changes that require reorganization, new solutions to problems, specific interactional dynamics, new meanings, ways of acting and thinking, and/or new representations. Such ruptures are followed by transition processes that aim to restore the continuity and integrity of the life course. Transitions are then understood as processes of reorganization of a system, based on the experience of rupture (internalization), which may reverberate in changes in actions, relationships, and thoughts. This conceptualization is based on a conception of human development as a complex biopsychosocial process, consisting of changes and transformations, in which the sociocultural context is a central element. Based on this conception, we specify our objective: to identify evidence of ruptures caused by widowhood and transitions that affect the autonomy and freedom of women’s experiences in contrast to men’s experiences.

Method

This is a qualitative research approach, considering our interest in the universe of human meanings, aspirations, values, attitudes and beliefs (Minayo, 2007). Thus, we prioritized reflexive action and the psychosocial demands presented by older adult, our greatest ethical commitment in scientific production.

Participants

Thirty-two older adult men and women (22 women), aged between 65 and 86, with a predominance of people who declared themselves to be black or brown (21 older adult). Most of the participants had completed or incomplete elementary school (21 participants) and a low income (1 minimum wage). All were residents of the municipality of São Lourenço da Mata - Pernambuco, and participants in the Social Group for the Older adults of the Social Service of Commerce - SESC, which met weekly with more than 100 older adults’ men and women for educational, cultural and leisure activities. Being a member of this group was therefore one of our inclusion criteria. A second inclusion criterion concerned the length of time spent in the group. The older adults had to have been part of the SESC group for at least six months before the pandemic was declared, when social distancing was adopted; in this way, they would have experienced the group in the period before returning to post-pandemic activities, as it was at the end of the social distancing period that the research interviews were carried out. The exclusion criteria consisted of: (1) having severe hearing loss (uncorrected using prostheses) and/or oral language difficulties that made it impossible to communicate with the researcher; (2) having pathologies that compromised their cognitive abilities, such as dementia or severe mental disorders, making it difficult to respond to the research instruments.

Instruments

Semi-structured interview script and audio recorder to record participants’ responses. The script included three thematic blocks: the first referred to participation in SESC’s Social Group for the Older adult; the second dealt with items related to experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic; the third block was made up of questions about being older adult and old age. In addition to the interview script, a sociodemographic questionnaire was used to characterize the research participants, with data on age, color, gender, schooling, monthly income, use of protective measures against Covid-19, among others. To discuss autonomy and freedom in the experiences of older people in relation to the gender dimension, questions related to the aging process and participation in the SESC Group were selected and analyzed.

Procedures

Data collection . access to this group took place at one of the weekly meetings, with the authorization of the institution, when the objectives of the work were presented and the invitation to take part in the research was announced. This was followed by the signing of the Informed Consent Form (ICF) and the scheduling of a single individual meeting to conduct an interview and apply a questionnaire.

Data analysis . thorough and systematic readings were made of the research corpus (transcripts of the participants’ accounts), selecting the answers that informed their perspectives on autonomy and freedom in old age. These clippings were revisited, similar to a micro-genetic approach, which proposes the study of intersubjective processes, linking micro-individual episodes with macro-social conditions related to social practices. This psychosocial approach maintains the centrality of the articulation between the historical, cultural and semiotic dimensions (Góes, 2000).

Ethical considerations

The project was authorized to begin collection, according to CAAE opinion No. 55561222.9.0000.5208, from the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Pernambuco, and followed all the recommendations suggested by specific legislation. In order to protect their anonymity, all the names of the research participants have been changed.

Results and Discussion

The following analysis is the result of a reflection on the interviews. In the case of older adult women, there is evidence of ruptures caused by widowhood; this experience provides opportunities for new learning and, therefore, for development in old age. Older adult men, on the other hand, mention events associated with retirement as being more prone to discontinuities and transitions.

Initially, we believe it is important to emphasize that an intersectional analysis of gender, ethnic-racial belonging and social class in ageing studies is fundamental to understanding the complex and multifaceted interferences in this process. This analysis would allow us to identify how these different dimensions of subjectivity overlap and interact in such a way as to produce unique experiences in older people. Our qualitative data captured from the interviews does not allow for this type of analysis; however, it does point to the relevance of an intersectional reading for future studies on human ageing. We will therefore present an analysis focused on gender issues, considering the potential of the empirical material and the methodological limitations of this research, bearing in mind that women were the majority in this study and predominantly declared themselves to be black or brown.

We have highlighted the contributions of Carmelita and other older adult women in the analysis, also using the speeches of three older adult men - Pedro (self-declared white), Jorge and Naelson (self-declared black men) - just to provide a contrast of perspectives. We’ll start with the experience of Carmelita, a 74-year-old self-declared brown woman who had been taking part in the Social Group for the Older adult for 12 years. When asked why she joined the group, she quickly explained:

Because anything that gives me freedom is valid for me ... I used to live at home, looking after the children, then later I got a husband and I felt liberated. He died, I didn’t kill him. He died because he wanted to and I’m here alive, wanting to enjoy it until the end of my life, ... I’ve been married for 38 years. I put up with everything that was bad and now I’m happy to be able to do what I want

Carmelita points to a problematization of the gender issue in her development process. In this excerpt from the interview, she directs our attention by emphasizing her spouse’s “action” of dying, after all “he died because he wanted to”, indicating that she had no part in what happened, but that it was an event that brought about important changes during her life. Among these, Carmelita highlights the freedom and autonomy she gained after widowhood, expressing her desire to “enjoy myself until the end of my life”, which had a temporal impact on her old age. In this way, Carmelita sees the event of widowhood as a temporal milestone in the breakdown of a family dynamic that had lasted for a long time, a rupture that catalyzed changes and new dynamics in the relationship between person and environment (Zittoun, 2009).

Carmelita, who associates her late experience of freedom with the event of widowhood, goes on to attribute the meanings of deprivation of freedom, suffering and submission to the period of her marriage, in a relationship marked by the oppression exercised by her husband. She exemplifies her current freedom through participation in different social and cultural spaces and activities (SESC’s Older adult Group, dance, aqua aerobics, excursions, other activities) with the past restrictions on social interaction when she recalls that:

... I like going out a lot, because it’s very relaxing, there’s no point in staying at home, because I’ve been trapped for many years, 38 years of marriage. I’ve put up with everything bad, and now I’m happy to be able to do what I want.

In Carmelita’s narrative, we assimilated elements of a personal, relational and contextual nature that refer to her inclusion in a Network of Meanings (RedSig), considered to be a mesh of semiotic elements that interrelate dialectically and circumscribe her development process, articulated with many other meanings and multiple social interactions in her social and cultural contexts (Rossetti-Ferreira et al., 2004).

Carmelita prioritizes freedom accompanied by autonomy to make decisions and manage her activities in old age, in the face of chronic illnesses and difficulties related to her social context (low family income, little schooling, living alone, among others). She opposes the social discourse that infantilizes the older adult, positioning herself as the protagonist of their daily choices, capable of maintaining their autonomy. She emphasizes:

Older adult people are about responsibility, about being liked, but under no circumstances should they play the baby, the little child, making fun, because it’s not appropriate. It’s like I tell you... I know that old people become children when they have Alzheimer’s disease, right? I’m a creature who hasn’t had a full education, but I can see, from my experience in life, that this is what it’s all about.

Carmelita’s position is one of opposition to social stigmas and prejudices, in other words, opposition to infantilization, which is considered symbolic violence because it deprives older people of their autonomy and encourages isolation and social disengagement in old age (Dutra & Carvalho, 2021). She continues to denounce suffering throughout her life, complexifying her network of meanings not only in relation to her social practices, but also in the field of meanings about old age: “... life experience. And for me, it’s been the best time. ... Because my childhood was crap, my adolescence too. I didn’t do well in my marriage. And now that I’m in one piece [laughs]”.

For Carmelita and many other older adult women, as we’ll see below, old age is characterized by gains related to freedom and autonomy, with a vision of the older adult person in their entirety, as an autonomous being responsible for their daily choices and actions, a thought that is consistent with their experiences after the break-up of widowhood. Childhood, adolescence and adulthood (marriage) are associated with significant losses and suffering, which only corroborates the view that losses and gains occur throughout the course of development and involve not only biological factors, but also social and cultural ones (Neri, 2006).

Antônia, 71, also justifies her entry into the Social Group for the Older adult eight years ago, following her widowhood, as an event that broke with a stable configuration of social relationships and practices, exemplifying the redirection of her life course towards new spaces and practices potentially favorable to new learning in old age. She explains:

I wanted to do it for two reasons, because I’ve always enjoyed playing the quadrilha and the pastoril. I like all the festivals, but my favorite are these two. And in my husband’s time, I didn’t play, I didn’t do any of that, because I was very stuck up. Then, when he died, I went there, first to São Lourenço. He died in April, and in September I went to the parade. I paraded in a group there and everything, and I kept parading every year.

It was striking to realize how this freedom and autonomy was only possible for many women in old age, after widowhood, and even after late independence from direct care relationships with family members, such as children and grandchildren. In this excerpt from Antônia’s interview, we can identify two ruptures, marriage and widowhood, by the way she situates these events in the course of her life. Marriage, as the event that triggered the break or discontinuity in her engagement in cultural activities; and widowhood, which breaks with the interactional dynamics during marriage, making it possible for her to broaden her social participation, with a return to cultural activities. We highlight widowhood as an important break in the course of life, which is how it was perceived by the older adult women in this study, as an event that catalyzed changes in daily life, both in terms of actions and thoughts, corroborating Zittoun’s ( 2009) conceptualization of rupture.

When we analyze Antônia’s accounts, we see ambivalences that can characterize transitions in the life course, in a process of articulating her personal experiences and socially constructed thinking about being older adult. Her life trajectory indicates an intense engagement in social activities (parties, dance groups, carnival, quadrilha, pastoril , for example), which followed a period of restrictions on social interaction during her marriage. This, however, is still being worked out in the field of the senses, of thought. When we asked her what motivates her to take part in this variety of activities, Antônia explained: “I feel like a young woman, because I have my freedom, I’m doing what I want, what I like”.

Although Antônia emphasizes the freedom and autonomy experienced in old age (present time), she associates these elements with youth, while being older adult is signified by the difficulties of living together, health and social integration, meanings commonly shared in social representations about old age (Brito et al., 2017), but discrepant from her social practices. The interdependence between social representations and social practices can be analyzed in the various accounts of older adult women who experienced processes of rupture-transitions in the face of the social event of widowhood/divorce, which shaped important directions in the trajectory of aging. In this sense, Margarida, 70, a widow, also sees widowhood as a break: “Our lives have just begun, my life has just begun”.

She expresses her opinion on old age through her historical and social context, presenting a field of meanings linked to the semiotic nature of her social practices, which include intense social participation, liveliness and freedom. More recent studies on the social representations of ageing have shown a shift towards a conception of gains in old age, such as quality of life, wisdom, maturity, experience, freedom and knowledge (Aguiar et al., 2018). In this context, we analyzed the convergence of thoughts and actions within the social group of older adult women, in the construction of social representations of old age, when Margarida answered what it was like to be an older adult woman:

He’s a person of respect, he’s getting on in life, but I’m not going to tell you that he’s hung up his boots. I do so many activities that you can’t imagine, I do everything. ... In other words, I think our lives have just begun. Because ten years ago, the way my life was, my husband drank a lot, I almost died before him, because he went into depression and started drinking.

The diversity of development possibilities in old age results from the centrality and complexity of social interactions, the processes of signification (semiotic field) and the socio-historical context, which are interdependent and intervene during life. Alice, a 75-year-old widow who has experienced the burden of caring for her husband, has a conception of old age based on thoughts that converge with her social group, but which is also permeated with ambivalence and contradictions, denoting the procedural nature of transitions in the field of social representations. Alice begins by talking about “being old”: “Because I think that for us to be old, we have to carry on living, because we are alive. Because I consider myself to be an older adult person who is good at everything. I can do anything. I do the gym, I do everything”.

Alice starts from a conception centered on her current social practices, her way of living her old age in an active and productive way, and moves on to a speech crossed by elements of her socio-cultural context, as we will see below.

There should be no such thing as old age [laughs], forgive me; there should be an age when you’re either 70 or 50, you stop there, you don’t get any older [he intensified his intonation]. Because old age finishes you off, then everything seems to stop with you. A lot of people think they don’t have the strength to get up anymore, so they give in too much.

The ambivalences raised in the conceptions of old age of the older adult women in this study are constituent elements and are constituted by the network of meaning. We are aware of the possibility of analyzing changes in social practices and in social and psychological roles and the interplay of positions, such as, for example, being a wife not so long ago - a psychological role of being submissive to her husband, dedicated to domestic activities (including keeping the house and looking after the children and other family members). This role seems to be updated or replaced by new roles, based on the reconfigurations of her network of meanings and her field of interaction. Faced with new and/or unfamiliar situations (such as widowhood, for example), the overlapping of new semiotic fields constitutes ambivalences that make it possible to signify actions and thoughts of the present, making it possible to deconstruct pre-existing semiotic sets or transform them. Therefore, the social context is a central aspect in both the genesis and processing of these ambivalences (Zittoun et al., 2012). We therefore emphasize that the processes of women’s transformations from youth/adulthood to old age, from marriage to widowhood, from being the provider of childcare (motherhood) to caring more for themselves, as well as transformations in the conceptions of old age in the collective culture, can be considered semiotic spaces that are conducive to ambivalence when facing new and challenging situations.

Carmelita and the other older adult women bring elements of the historical and social context of the institution of marriage, created to regulate relationships between men and women for centuries in the Christian West. Historian Mary Del Priore ( 2020) explains that these relationships were built on contracts between men in which daughters were the resources used for political alliances or financial compensation, giving men power over women in a structurally patriarchal society. The author says that, in the middle of the 20th century, “The legacy of centuries imposed itself: a domesticated love, made up of reasons. No passions that violated law and order. It was impossible to break with the traditional molds of happiness linked to legal marriage and legitimate children” (p. 72). This historical legacy endures and is updated today, but it is also important to recognize the processes of transformation starting with the feminist movements in favour of the desire for autonomy and equality, which never succumbed to the adversity and violence practiced against women. The spatio-temporal contextualization of the events narrated by the participants, understanding temporality from the integration of the past - lived time - with the present, in a dialectical process of re-significations and updates of discursive practices, makes it possible to elaborate on the past and present and reorientate for the future. This is what Rossetti-Ferreira et al. ( 2004) call the temporal fullness perceived in the research participant’s discourse.

Continuing the accounts of the group of women in this study, Ivonete, 77, widowed for 12 years, denounces the violence in the relationship dynamics of her marriage:

... I’ve had two husbands. The first one I married, and the second one was the father of my son, both have died. I didn’t have any children with the first one, because I only lived with him for four years. He was very jealous of me, I was young, well-made. He was very jealous and hit on me.

In a society in which male domination and oppression is institutionalized and culturally shared, men and women are socialized from birth to accept sexist thoughts and actions, to see violence as an acceptable means of social control, including domestic violence, which can also be understood as “patriarchal” violence, based on the belief that it is acceptable for the most powerful individual to use coercive force to control others (Hooks, 2022). This analysis allows us to highlight the interdependence between socio-economic and political elements, discursive and social practices, and development/aging trajectories. We are referring to certain elements of the socio-historical matrix in which these women are subjectively constituted in a dialogical relationship with this macro-social environment (Rossetti-Ferreira et al., 2004).

Researcher Valeska Zanello ( 2022) explains that gender inequality is sustained by different modes of subjectivation and is correlated to the loving and maternal devices attributed to women, based on the historical, political and economic context and path of contemporary Brazilian society. The author explains: “What makes women accept anything in a relationship is not the love dedicated to this or that man, but the need to be chosen and validated as a ‘woman’” (p. 66). In this process of women’s subjectivation, the love device results in the need to be validated by the man’s gaze in order to build their identity. Célia, 77, says: “Okay, so I chose not to separate, because by then I’d been married for over 40 years, it was my first in everything...”.

The participant points out that distancing herself from the aesthetic ideal (especially for older and black women), in which the body and beauty are symbolic and matrimonial capital, can leave her in a situation of greater vulnerability and submission to the love relationship. Judith Butler ( 2018) challenges traditional conceptions of gender by arguing that it is not a fixed identity or an innate attribute, but rather a performance. The gender norms explored in this study are realized through performative acts, suggesting that gender is something we do continuously and has the power to transform the self and the other. The identity issues that the older adult women were able to analyze through their personal and collective experiences reinforce this resistance and subversion of social roles, even in old age.

The maternal device, which is also implicated in the construction of women’s identities, attributes the act of mothering, of caring not only for one’s offspring, but for anyone, to “female nature”, giving rise to specific and unequal demands for women, such as motherhood and domestic work. These devices are historical and social constructions, shared through cultural gender learning and which meet the demands of the sexed division of labor of the capitalist and patriarchal system (Zanello, 2022).

Alice, an older adult woman of 75, highlights the unfolding of gender inequality related to the overload of care work in her personal experience of marriage, a common reality for most women in our society, and more aggravatingly for black women. Alice experiences restrictions in her life because of her role as her husband’s caregiver, concretely compromising her time and her possibilities to occupy other spaces and expand her social life. The changes only come about with the breakdown caused by the death of her spouse, or rather, after her change of place and role in the family dynamic, from caring for others to caring for herself.

Because it had only been a short time since my husband had passed away and I was feeling very lonely at home, that lack at home, the busyness, you know? Because we’re very busy with one person, because he was bedridden at home. Then all the attention was on him, there was no time for anything. Then, after he passed away, there was a lack of time at home, so I tried to find out and a colleague referred me to SESC, which she joined at the same time as I did.

According to the Continuous National Household Sample Survey: other forms of work, carried out by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE, 2022), women spend twice as many hours (21.3 hours per week) on care work - which includes domestic chores and caring for children, the older adult and the disabled - compared to the time spent by men (11.7 hours per week) in Brazil. The invisibilized and unpaid work delegated to women can be understood as another important circumscriber of development, which concretely and symbolically directs women’s development, impacting on opportunities for schooling, entering the job market, leisure and other social activities.

Antônia’s situation, and that of a significant number of the women interviewed in this research, is one of intense domestic and care work throughout her life (from childhood to old age), a socially invisible job that overburdens and makes women vulnerable. Federici ( 2021) opposes this devaluation of women’s reproductive and domestic work by discussing the essential role this work plays in maintaining capitalism and the patriarchal structure of society. The author understands that tasks such as looking after children, cleaning the house and cooking keep women confined to private space and economically dependent. Thus, women perform unpaid care work, which is socially perceived as an act of love and inherent to the concept of femininity. Margarida, at the age of 70, clearly expresses her concern about her family’s financial dependence:

Every month, I give her [daughter] X to do the market, she’s unemployed and her husband is also unemployed, so when he gets a job, I help him a little and when he doesn’t [get a job] I help him more. The day I leave, I always say to them [daughters], I’m 70, so if God calls me? I worry about that. Who’s going to help them?

Margarida still works informally reselling clothes at popular fairs, and this extra source of income (in addition to her pension) has been an important financial support for her daily needs. These issues are part of her vision of old age, when she says: “Old age should be like the way I live mine, the way I am, enjoying everything, going for walks, having fun, talking, even working if possible”.

Social expectations about women’s roles, which often prioritize care responsibilities over careers, further restrict their access to equal opportunities at work. While for older women, freedom was seen as one of the main gains in old age and its loss in adulthood and earlier years, freedom was never seen as a psychosocial problem for older men. Deprivation of work in the face of retirement or old age, on the other hand, was seen as a more significant disruption while ageing for them. This result points to the entire problematization of the subjective construction of masculinities centered on work (Torres et al., 2015), as a privileged element in the processes of constructing male identities, and consequently with psychosocial implications in old age

Zanello ( 2022) situates the devices of labor efficiency and sexual virility as central axes in the construction of male subjectivity. The author argues that “[...] in our culture, men learn to love many things and women learn to love men” (p. 70). In the narratives of the men interviewed in this research, marriage was not presented as a problematic issue in their daily lives. In order to amplify this gender issue, we present 73-year-old Pedro’s account of joining the SESC group

You see, the older adult has a big gap in their lives when they leave their jobs, their work, these things, so they must fill it with something. So SESC is a good idea, because it has trips, it has these meetings with them, because one older adult person with another, they understand each other’s language.

The interruption of work, for the older adult men, seems to mobilize them to search for a purpose in life that until then had prioritized work. Jorge, 80, also explains his motivations for joining the Social Group: “I’d been doing nothing for a long time, so it was very good because not working and doing nothing is very bad. Then you must find something that fills you up, right? Fill your life, your time!”

Work appears to provide the older adult with utility, keeping them productive in society, which can make the process of retirement and, consequently, aging more difficult for men. But Naelson, 73, points to a re-signification of work, an important symbolic resource for dealing with changes in old age:

In my opinion, old age... because work is essential. If you work, you take a break ... there’s that chore, there’s occupation of the mind, it’s another story. In my opinion, you’re not going to stay in a rocking chair, ... waiting for death to come. No, I don’t think that’s it, prosperity, working, studying, reading, in my view that’s it.

Thus, formal work seems to have been reframed into a broader, more comprehensive idea, preserving the initial concept of social utility, but carried out in different activities, including those provided by the Social Group for the Older adult, motivating his entry and permanence in this activity. And as Naelson explained, he joined the SESC group: “... because a neighbor was taking part and talking about the lectures and I was already wanting to because retired people always have to look for something to do so as not to stand still”.

Once again, the experience of retirement and its changes in the daily lives of the older adult seem to be associated with the search for other activities to fill this “lack” and preserve their social productivity. It is worth noting that most of the men were married, meaning that marriage did not prevent them from engaging in physical and social activities, which are considered essential for active and healthy ageing (Gomes et al., 2021 ; Pinto & Neri, 2017). On the contrary, the older adult recognized their partners’ support and encouragement for social engagement.

Based on the narratives of older adult women and men, marriage and widowhood can be considered important material and symbolic circumscribers during this ageing process, either by keeping them away from opportunities for new social ties, new learning and improved physical and mental health, or by expanding possibilities for biopsychosocial development. Among the circumscribers, some elements seem to present themselves in a more rigid way, in a dynamic of repetitions, positions and behaviors by people in a position of subjection, difficult to escape as a kind of entanglement (Rossetti-Ferreira et al., 2004). The narratives of the older adult women in this research refer to this process of entanglement, when they indicate difficulties in getting out of predicted and chronologically situated social roles: marriage, motherhood, domestic and care work.

The validation of the social roles attributed to women - being mothers, wives, caregivers and nurturers - by social institutions (such as the family, religion, for example) and patriarchal cultural contexts subjectively guaranteed them a position of submission and oppression in marital and family relationships. Historian Lerner (1986/2019) highlights the difficult task for women of becoming aware of and emancipating themselves from the socio-political system in which they are subjugated. Male domination is posed as a universal and natural issue, based on religious and then scientific explanations, the interests of capitalist society with the sexual division of labor, among various other historical and social factors, which constitute its strength and permanence to this day in the personal and collective culture of our society. But what made it possible to break out of this entanglement in old age? To answer this, there is a complexity of personal, relational and contextual elements that shape their networks of meanings, including the various ruptures and processes of transformation experienced throughout life, which enable new interactional dynamics and resignification in old age.

The main result of this investigation was the gender dimension related to the themes of freedom and autonomy, which were brought up in spontaneous reports by older adult women when asked about their motivations for taking part in the SESC group. Older adult men, on the other hand, said they were looking for an activity to fill the void left by retirement. Specifically, the older adult women interviewed highlighted gender inequality as a mediator of freedom and autonomy, an inequality socially legitimized in marriage, through a relationship of oppression and exploitation against women. Their accounts denounce the various losses and limitations during their development caused by a society that structurally places women in a position of inferiority and submission in marriage and in other public and private spheres of society. Restrictions on freedom and autonomy were directly associated with male domination in the marital relationship and the caring role imposed on them. The older adult women interviewed expressed and made even more visible all the suffering and losses caused by sexist oppression, both in the macro-social context, across the life course from childhood to old age, and in the micro-social context, in everyday family and community life.

The data gathered in this research calls for a careful and interested look from different sectors of society, including academia, to produce knowledge and interventions aimed at social transformations that effectively guarantee women’s right to freedom, just as it has always been guaranteed to men, so that in the future this issue does not generate losses and disruptions in the course of women’s development. It is crucial to note how gender implies differences and specificities in the social roles and positions attributed to women in interpersonal relationships between men and women.

These results highlight the need for an intersectional analysis of gender, race, class and territory in the scientific production of psychology, constituting a central axis of articulation between the psychology of human development, characterized by focusing on the transformations that occur throughout people’s lives, and social psychology, which prioritizes the interpersonal relationships of the societal dimension. In this study, gender is not just an analytical category for contextualizing psychosocial phenomena, but a psychological construct with all its implications, because it circumscribes the course of human development, directing the person towards specific positions, sometimes limiting, but also empowering, when it assumes its political status. Due to its historical, economic, social and cultural nature, gender is constantly being (de)constructed., necessary for the inclusion of different forms of subjectivity, including masculinities and femininities, which guarantee the right to freedom and autonomy throughout the course of human development.

Data Availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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• How to cite this article:
  Souza, J. O., & Pedrosa, M. I. (2025). Freedom and autonomy in old age: ruptures and transitions in the lifespan. Paidéia (Ribeirão Preto), 35, e3519. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-4327e3519
• Article derived from the doctoral thesis of the first author under the supervision of the second, defended in 2024, in the Postgraduate Program in Psychology at Universidade Federal de Pernambuco.

Edited by

• Associate editor:
  Clarissa Mendonça Corradi-Webster

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  24 Oct 2025
• Date of issue
  2025

History

• Received
  04 Nov 2024
• Accepted
  24 Mar 2025
• Reviewed
  12 Mar 2025