Factors Influencing the Meaning of Life for Middle-aged Women

Park, Geum Ja

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine factors influencing the meaning of life for middle-aged women. The subjects for the study were 190 middle- aged women who live in Busan. Data were collected from May 25 to June 20, 1999. The instruments for this study were as follows : the meaning of life scale developed by Jung D. R(1978) ; the self-esteem scale developed by Ro, E. Y, Kwon, J. H.(1997) ; the volunteer activity scale developed by Park G. J.(1999), the marital satisfaction scale developed by Choi G. Y.(1999) ; and the health status scale developed by Kim S. Y. (1991). SPSS PC+ was utilized for data analysis. Data were analysed according to frequency and percentage, mean and standard deviation, t-test, ANOVA, Sheffe's test and Pearson's correlation coefficients and stepwise multiple regression. The reliability of the tools was tested by Cronbach's aloha : and it showed reliability scores of 0.88(for the meaning of life tool), 0.81(for the self-esteem tool), 0.94(for the marital satisfaction tool) and 0.78(for the health status tool). The results were as follows: 1)The scores showed that middle-aged women had a moderate level of meaning of life, with a mean of 30.31 and standard deviation of 6.24 (with values ranging from 12.00 to 48.00). The scores showed that middle-aged women had a moderate levels of self-esteem, with a mean of 28.92 and standard deviation of 4.67 (with values ranging from 10.00 to 40.00). The scores showed that middle-aged women had a very low level of volunteer activity, with a mean of 0.87 and standard deviation of 0.93(with values ranging from 0.00 to 1.00). The scores showed that middle-aged women had a moderate level of satisfaction in their marriages, with a mean of 31.99 and standard deviation of 7.84(with values ranging from 12.00 to 48.00). The scores showed that middle-aged women had a moderate level of health status, with a mean of 6.63 and standard deviation of 1.57(with values ranging from 3.00 to 9.00). 2)There was a statistically significant difference of the meaning of life of middle-aged women according to their religion(F= 8.930, p= .000), christian (31.94+/-5.96) had more meaning th life than buddhists (28.40+/-6.23). 3)There was a statistically significant correlations between the subject's self-esteem and the her meaning of life(r=o.477, p=0.000), the subject's level of volunteer activity and meaning of life(r= .428, p= .000), her level of marital satisfaction and meaning of life(r= .417, p= .000), and her level of health status and meaning of life(r= .261, p= .000) among these middle-aged women. 4)Self-esteem was the highest factor influencing the level of meaning of life in middle-aged women. 40.0% of the total variance of levels of meaning of life by was dependent on self-esteem, volunteer activity, marital satisfaction and health status. In conclusion, the higher the self-esteem and levels of volunteer activity, marital satisfaction, and health status of middle-aged women, the higher the meaning of life for them. Therefore, it is necessary to elevate levels of the self-esteem and volunteer activity, marital satisfac -tion and health status in order to help middle -aged women have more meaning of life.