Each person normally has several roles to enact because of the various positions occupied in the different institutional aspects of the social structure. In the context of role theory, the enactment of these multiple roles is considered to be the primary basis for most of a person's behavior, attitudes, values, prestige, and personal integration. The "role theory perspective" as defined by Biddle and Thomas (1966) is:
A limited social determinism that ascribes much but rarely all of the variance of real-life behavior to the operation of immediate or past external influences. Such influences include prescriptive framework of demands and rules, the behavior of others as it facilitates or hinders and rewards or punishes the person, the positions of which the person is a member, and the individual's own understanding of, and reactions to these factors.
The problem of analyzing roles at any stage of the life cycle is complicated by the fact that the person has a number of intersecting and overlapping roles which must be undertaken-sometimes simultaneously and sometimes sequentially, according to the expectations of that particular situation. This problem is accentuated for the female who, according to Atchley (1972), is under greater pressure to assume a number of conflicting roles throughout the life cycle than is the male. For the female, the various roles of worker, housewife, and mother occupy different priority positions at different points throughout the life cycle. Although the male's "role set," or "complement of role specializations" (Biddle and Thomas, 1966) throughout the life cycle also typically consists of a number of roles, the role of worker consistently occupies the greatest area of "role space."
The reasons for the predominance of the role of workers are twofold: (1) it is the one role which most frequently takes precedence over other roles, and (2) the one which derives greater societal rewards relative to rewards from other male roles (Palmore, 1965).
Work Role
Historical tables of United States labor force participation rates (Gallaway, 1965) suggest a much greater degree of fluctuation in importance of the work role for today's aged woman. A female born in 1900, for example, probably entered the labor force during or immediately after finishing high school, then retired to her home to bear and rear children, perhaps re-entered employment outside the home during World War II, and then exited again. The Women's Bureau reported that about 9 out of 10 women work outside the home sometime during their lives, whether they marry or not. Marriage and the presence of children tend to curtail employment, while widowhood, divorce, and the decrease of family responsibilities tend to attract into the work force (Women's Bureau, 1969). During 1973, the highest proportion of women in the labor force was between 20-24 years of age (61 per cent). After this there is a sudden drop in the proportion of women who are working, followed by an upswing until the high of 53.4 per cent between the ages of 45 and 54 years.
Other recent trends show that among married women aged 25 to 44 living with their husbands, the proportion in the labor force increased by 41 per cent between 1960 and 1973, from 33.1 per cent to 46.4 per cent, and among wives between the ages of 45 and 64 years, the proportion of workers increased similarly. One important consideration, however, is that the employment figures of women in the labor force often camouflage a minimal level of involvement. Only 42 per cent of those women who worked some time in 1967 did so full time the year round (Women's Bureau, 1969). Thus, despite strong indication that women will continue to increase their number of years of work involvement over the life cycle, and despite a seeming gradual change in attitude of the traditional culture toward women's roles, the intermittent nature of the female work career will most likely continue, and the work cycles of women will remain clearly distinguishable from those of men.
Lopata (1966) maintains the social role of housewife has a unique cycle compared to other roles, involving relatively little anticipatory socialization, very brief time devoted to the "becoming" stage, and a rather compressed and early peak. It can be performed during the major part of the life cycle of a woman, yet "its entrance, modifications, and cessation are usually not a consequence of its own characteristics or rhythm but of those of other roles." She goes on to explain that some women never become "inside-located," so that the return to work or other community involvement (of married women) after the birth of the children is rapid and complete. Women who have placed themselves in the home and for whom the housewife role became important may be attracted to the outside or forced out of the inside by a feeling of obligation to help in the financial support of the family, or through crises such as widowhood. Those who do not go out completely, but do so part time, include women who have never cut off ties with the outside, or who develop new lines of connection. They most frequently combine both orientations through the addition of some outside role, such as part-time worker, without letting such identification grow into a total commitment. Most of the aforementioned Chicago interviewees, even those who had full time employment outside of the home, expressed an "inside" identity.
Housewife Role
The "shrinking circle" stage in the social role of housewife starts when the first child is married or has left home and is very difficult for women who have invested their lives in that role and who do not have alternative sources for the focusing of identity. According to Lopata (1966), the "shrinking" of the "circle" removes many of the sources of prestige without any choice or control on the part of the woman whose identity is bound with it No matter how well she performs it, how many and how important are the persons for whom it is performed, or how significant is the role in the lives of recipients, modern society automatically decreases the ability of the role of housewife to serve as a center of relations. Thus, "the housewife ceases to perform the role at a high plateau level, long before capacity to carry out its duties decreases, providing a reason or excuse for its cessation." Changes in the role come basically and primarily from changes in characteristics of the circle prior to any changes in her which could provide justification for decreasing functionality. Furthermore, the shrinking of the role importance of housewife and mother cannot always lead to a shift of self and of role-focus to a concentration on the role of wife, if such an emphasis was absent, since the husband tends still to be highly involved in the role of worker.
Also, according to Lopata (1966), for those aging women who have survived the "shrinking circle" stage, fewer decision-making problems, a lack of pressure from demanding and often conflicting roles, satisfaction with past performance of the role of housewife and with the products of the role of mother, and prior adjustment to the lack of centrality in the lives of children can all contribute to a relatively high degree of satisfaction in the later years. For those who are not widows, the focal nature of the role of wife may be increased with the retirement, or "fade out," from occupational roles on the part of the spouse. Widowhood is more likely to occur for females than for males (Lopata, 1972); at any point during the life cycle, death of a spouse could cause a major transformation in the social role of housewife and could demand a role realignment.
Thus, the life cycle of a human being can be seen as involving shifts in the components of his or her role cluster, when new ones are added and old ones dropped, and when shifts occur in the location of each role in the cluster. The general attitude which seems to pervade the geronto-logical literature is that while circumstances and family composition may vary over time, the female's identification with the roles of wife, mother, homemaker, and worker remains unchanged throughout her adult life.
Retirement Role
The facts are, however, that the female is constantly undergoing modifications in the characteristics of each assigned role as she enters different stages of the life cycle or changes her definition of the role, in response to events external to the person. Heyman (1970) remarks that while some wives may retire as many as three different times during a lifetime, these retirements obviously differ from the "retirement" of a man who at a relatively advanced age and with declining physical health is facing a single, final separation from his central life role as a wage-earner and principal provider for his family. The male is faced with loss of what has heretofore been conceived as a permanent work role, reduced economic resources, and necessity for role realignment and the need for new role opportunities. For today's elderly women, on the other hand, retirement may have begun quite early in her lifetime and have recurred periodically.
There currently exists considerable disagreement as to the impact of retirement upon the male. Miller's (1965) identity crisis theory suggests that retirement in and of itself negatively influences the quality of one's life, while Atchley's (1971) identity continuity theory posits that work is not necessarily at the top of several roles on which one's identity rests and that its removal is not regarded negatively by most retired people. However, there is a general consensus in the literature that retirement rarely poses any problems for women because "she is merely giving up a secondary role in favor of the primary roles of housewife, mother, and grandmother" (Palmore, 1965).
