earticle

영어

The purpose of this study was to examine the phenomenon of social participation among female baby boomers. The key research questions were asked in what kind of activities do female baby boomers engage as social participation? The in-depth interview was used with 11 female baby boomers who were born between 1955 to 1963. The interview text were analyzed by the qualitative study method. The findings are as follows. First, the most common type of social participation was having hobbies and leisure activities, and the other were participating in religious activities, learning activities, volunteer activities and on-line club activities. Second, social participation gave them meanings such as joy, satisfaction, and experiences of seeing the new world as well as opportunities to make up low sense of self-esteem formed in their young age. Third, they were considering it was time to change their social participation. The cases who were actively engaging in social participation considered old age as ‘the process of reducing social participation’. Some other cases considered to ‘share hobbies with spouse’, and to ‘achieve new goals and dreams’. The results showed that female baby boomers started their social participation in their middle ages when they became free from their children’s education. The level of the involvement in social participation was reduced in their old age. Surprisingly, some interviewees planned to accomplish their dreams and goals that they haven’t achieved yet. These differences among the cases could be attributed to the individual characteristics such as personality, birth order, economic and educational background, and to the social relationship.