The impact of role loss upon coping resources and life satisfaction of the elderly.

A stress is developed to explore the impact of role loss upon the lives of the elderly. The proposed model conceptualizes role loss as a stressor having an impact upon both the coping resources and life satisfaction of the elderly. A cumulative data set from the National Opinion Research Center (General Surveys, 1974, 1975, 1977) was used to test the model separately for men and women. The authors conclude that role loss does have an indirect and direct effect on coping resources and life satisfaction, especially for men. Men and women may also use different coping resources in mediating stress. The adequacy of the stress model in aging research is than discussed.