title: The Role of Relevancy and Social Suffering in "Generativity" Among Older Post-Soviet Women Immigrants.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper examines generativity, social suffering, and culture change in a sample of 16 women aged 65 years or older who emigrated from the former Soviet Union. Key concerns with generativity are identity, which can be strongly rooted in one's original cultural formation, and a stable life course, which is what ideally enables generative impulses to be cultivated in later life.
  
  
  METHODS
  To better understand how early social suffering may affect later life generativity, we conducted two 90-min interviews with each of our participants on their past experiences and current views of generativity.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The trauma of World War II, poor quality of life in the Soviet Union, scarcity of shelter and supplies, and fear of arrest emerged as common components in social suffering, which affected their identity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Overall, the theme of broken links to the future--the sense that their current lives were irrelevant to future generations--was strong among informants in their interviews, pointing to the importance of life course stability in relation to certain forms of generativity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Gerontology, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. demedekb@miamiOH.edu.
authors.forename: Kate
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: de Medeiros
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology & Sociology, University of Maryland Baltimore County.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rubinstein
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology and Gerontology, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
authors.forename: Polina
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ermoshkina
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology*; D003469:Culture; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012933:Social Identification; D012944:Social Support; D014586:USSR
keywords: Culture; Generativity; Identity; Older women; Social support; Soviet Union; Suffering; Women’s issues