Spirituality: Investigating the Effects of Age and Gender

Old age is seen as a time when elderly engage in the spirituality to find existential meaning of life, transcend beyond the boundaries of self to realize connection with the larger universe and also to come to terms with death. In this context, the present research aims to understand the development of spirituality from the middle age through the old age. The study also examines the gender differences in spirituality. For this purpose three age cohorts: middle aged (40-45 years), young old (60-65 years) and oldest old (80 years and above) were chosen to assess spiritual development with age. The sample of 171 respondents (95 males and 76 females) were administered Daily Spiritual Experience scale (Underwood, 2006). Two-way factorial ANOVA was computed to examine age and gender differences in spirituality (daily spiritual experiences and perceived closeness to God). The results indicated that spirituality increased consistently with increasing age as middle aged were lowest on daily spiritual experiences and perceived closeness to God and the oldest old respondents were highest on these dimensions. A significant gender and age interaction was observed wherein middle aged females experienced more daily spiritual experiences as compared to middle aged males. This significant difference disappeared with age. The results are discussed in light of recent research and implications of the research are suggested.