Midlife and the life-course: The associated shifts in life perspective and societal obligations

Midlife is an intriguing phase of the life-course characterized by prominent transitions in the psychological make-up. The current research had twin objectives. A part of it examined an approximate chronological age boundary of middle adulthood as a life phase in the socio-cultural set-up of the city of Kolkata, India, through an opinion survey. The sampling was purposive. 88 working adults, aged between 30-50 years participated in the opinion-survey. This part revealed that midlife is thought to fall roughly between the ages of 35 and 59 years in the targeted socio-cultural environment. Another part examined whether age and gender influenced midlife generative concern and generative action, (the concept of generativity being intrinsically associated with successful and productive adult development particularly manifested during midlife), and how generative concern was related to generative action in the middle adults of this part of the world. The sampling was again purposive and sample size was 100. The Loyola Generativity Scale (LGS) and the Generative Behavior Checklist (GBC) were used to assess the constructs of generative concern and generative action respectively. Findings reveal an age and gender interaction effect upon generative concern. A positive correlation was found to exist between generative concern and action. Implications and conclusions of the above are mentioned.