Stories of intimacy and sexuality in later life: solo women speak

This chapter presents selected findings from a study on the impact of the rise in non-traditional family relationships on ‘successful’ ageing. The focus of which is on Solo women - women who are ‘not-partnered’, without children and who are aged over 50 years and over. Little is known about the life trajectories of Solo women as they move into later life (Darab and Hartman, 2013) and there is a paucity of research seeking to understand their support networks, social connectedness and personal relationships. This chapter draws on selected findings from a study which explores some of the dynamics and issues impacting Solo women in later life using a range of methods including a literature review; demographic analysis, an online survey and interview data. Here we draw principally on the findings from qualitative data from the online survey (see Letchfield et al, 2017) and in-depth interviews with Solo women in England aged 50 years and over. Considered together these findings captured a rich picture of Solo women’s own subjective perspectives about the links between their relationship status and wellbeing in later life - and in this chapter we focus particularly on the findings relating to sexuality and intimacy.

This is an Accepted Manuscript of a book chapter published by Routledge in Sexuality, Sexual and Gender Identities and Intimacy Research in Social Work and Social Care: A Lifecourse Epistemology on 28/03/2018, available online: http://www.routledge.com/9781138225879