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The total number of widows in India exceeds 33 million. Yet, despite the large number of women affected, little is known about their living conditions. Widows are particularly vulnerable and deserve special attention within the study of public policy and economic development. This paper is based on an analytical research study conducted by interviewing 300 randomly selected rural widows of all age groups from rural parts of the Vidarbha region. An attempt is made to achieve better understanding of social and economic condition of widows, by focusing attention on widowhood as a social problem. This study explores the dominant ideological construction of widowhood in the context of patriarchy, religion, and customs. Nearly 69% widows were illiterate, 96% had economic problems, and 47% faced discrimination due to caste and religious obligations. Elderly widows constituted 49% of the sample, age had placed them in a difficult position to discrimination, dependence, oppression, and health problems. Among elderly widows there was a wide spread feeling of psychological neglect and isolation. The paper also discusses some key issues of social, economic policy, and action in support of widows’ property rights, social security, employment, social identity, and participation in society.

The study identifies factors that account for high levels of deprivation which includes limited freedom to remarry, insecure property rights, living arrangement of elderly, social stigma, restricted employment opportunities, and lack of social support. The study extensively deals with social work intervention aspects in helping the widows and discusses social, economic, and policy implications of the problems of widows.

By age 77 a plurality of women in wealthy Western societies are widows. Comparing older (aged 70+) married women to widows in the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) 2003–2018 and linking the data to the Current Population Survey allow inferring the short- and longer-term effects of a demographic shock – husband's death – and measuring the paths of adjustment of time use to it. Widows differ from otherwise similar married women, especially from married women with working husbands, by cutting back on home production, mainly food preparation and housework, mostly by engaging in less of it each day, not doing it less frequently. The ratio of time to money expenditures on one item – food – is higher among married older couples than among widows. Widows are alone for 2/3 of the time they had spent with their spouses, with a small increase in time with friends and relatives shortly after becoming widowed. Older French, Italian, German, and Dutch women exhibit similar differences in time use; European widows also feel less time stress than married women. Following older women in 18 European countries before and after a partner's death shows that becoming widowed reduces their feelings of time pressure.

This study examines variation in health-related coping strategies among the widowed by variation in bereavement, as modified by self-efficacy, religiosity, social support, and self-rated health. Coping strategies are documented by gender, race, age, and income level, and the interaction of gender and race. Data are from the Changing Lives of Older Couples Study (CLOC), a longitudinal dataset from a random sample of older adults from the Detroit Metropolitan area. Bereavement is related to overall negative coping behavior, specifically to daily cigarette consumption and physical inactivity. However, the effect varies based on the gender, race, and age of the widowed, as well as type of moderator.

Purpose – This chapter attempts to understand the impact of war, conflict, and forced migration in the northwest border of India on the security of the aged widows and the ways they respond, construct, and negotiate their lives.

Methodology – The study is based on group discussions in villages and camps and narratives of seven widowed women who were asked to tell the story of their lives.

Findings – The chapter highlights that widowed women's agency was exercised in a significant manner during the situations of war, conflict, and forced migration, but it was largely circumscribed by the intersection of patriarchy, rural structure, customary practices, and inheritance rights. New norms and new roles were taken up in the migrant camps, but village life with its traditional extended family structure was still considered ideal for the social security it provided. However, aged widows are no longer treated with respect and care, suggesting a decline in the traditional joint family system and of the dominant position of elderly widowed women in it. This was accelerated in conflict situations.

Research implications – The research calls for focusing on women's agency and moving beyond the victimhood paradigm in women's studies. It highlights the significance of individual interpretations of events and the relevance of qualitative methods such as life stories.

Value of chapter – The chapter is valuable for its work on themes such as rural life, gender, and conflict studies and for policy makers to initiate plans dealing with the problems of forced migrants and of the security of the older people, particularly widows.

Objective: to find out more about older men's experience of social activities including their preferences for creating and maintaining satisfying social connections and to identify barriers and enablers to their participation in social activities.Method: men aged 65 and older living in Central Sydney Area Health Service (CSAHS) were recruited for five focus groups (n=29). The men were asked about their experience of social interaction, with the transcripts of the groups analysed thematically.Results: retirement, health changes, divorce, widowhood and changing personal relationships challenged social well‐being. Strategies employed to combat these challenges included: a positive attitude, physical and mental activity and involvement in meaningful activities. Participants outlined their preferences for socialising within activities and suggested these differed from women's.Conclusion: activities that men saw as meaningful helped them cope with challenging events. Older men have preferred ways of maintaining social well‐being and constructing social networks that may be influential in developing services.

Family as a domestic group is seen to be crucial for the production and replenishment of human capital from generation to generation. With the consequences of demographic aging process, there is a rethinking into the structure and function of the institution for critically analyzing the contemporary challenges. In India, graying of the population became one among the major reason for scholars to pay more attention to interpret family attributes. Women’s social status, autonomy, and entitlements had marked serious shifts according to subsequent changes that happened. Using mixed methodology, aged women from Hindu families in India were studied. An examination of the existing structure, functions, social duties, and responsibilities in Hindu families, sociocultural constructions of identities within the sphere of family, and the impacts of age identities in determining the health-related quality of life and subjective well-being of aged women were the objectives of the study. While Bourdieu’s concept of habitus was used as a theoretical basis for the study, the researcher gives prepositions for sociocultural constructions of age identities through the concepts of Reverse Metamorphosis and Identity Cocoons. The study reveals that the self and social identity constructs explain interactive behavior as well as the interplay of personal meanings, family dynamics, and informal factors across the life span under the sociocultural underpinnings in a multicultural society like India.

This study aims to address the social, cultural, financial and psychological obstacles these women face in preserving their living arrangements and in parenting as well as the coping mechanisms women adopt to overcome everyday challenges. Researchers used qualitative methodology and interviews to fulfill the aims.

Researchers used qualitative methodology and interviews to fulfill the aims. The sample consists of 20 Syrians living in Jordan’s Amman, Irbid and Al Ramtha in specially designed compounds for them (14 widows and 6 divorcees).

This study’s findings demonstrate that social and cultural norms existing in Jordan and Syria are generally similar, in which women view the males in the family as a source of socioeconomic and emotional stability for them. Widows and divorcees face serious sociocultural, financial and psychological challenges in maintaining their living conditions and the integration process as well as performing single parenting. Faith and social connections represent an important part of coping with the situation in the short term; nevertheless, financial and psychological support seems a vital component in the long term. Research on the conditions of widows and divorcees provides evidence to comprehensively approach the issue of “vulnerabilities” in the humanitarian-policy programming targeting refugees. Theoretically, the findings may provide empirical insights for discussions around women’s changing identities through displacement, agency and empowerment in relation to parenting experiences.

The lived experience of widowhood and divorce among Syrian is understudied, while their resilience strategies are less known. To fill these gaps, this study focuses on Syrian refugee widows and divorcees who are raising their children in specially designated compounds in Jordan and the difficulties they face on social, economic and emotional levels. Besides its originality in providing empirical material about challenges Syrian women faced, our study contributes to better understand women's claims for agency and empowerment as a part of identity changes.

Bereavement is far reaching and has a significant impact on many lives as widow(er)s are faced with countless changes to their everyday routines, their relationships and their consumption patterns. It is in this context that the purpose of this study is to examine the links between the meanings of bereavement for widows and the types and sources of social support sought. This deepens the understanding of the reasons for the success or failure of service encounters and thus contributes to consumer well-being.

A qualitative study was carried out to gain more insight into this issue. A total of 24 in-depth interviews were conducted with French widows 59 years of age and older. To fully understand the diversity of bereavement experiences, the authors examined the following factors: life trajectory, life, as the spouse’s/partner’s death, support received and/or solicited and the success or failure of service encounters.

The findings suggest that bereavement experiences hold different meanings related to the types and sources of the preferred support. The following six classes were identified: dealing with administrative and financial issues, maintaining parental roles, enduring the memories of the circumstances of the spouse’s/partner’s death, reorganizing daily life, facing the loneliness of widowhood and expressing the affects of bereavement. These classes help to identify the conditions for the success or failure of service encounters.

The following two avenues emerge that contribute to the well-being of widows: “loss-oriented” and “restoration-oriented” bereavement classes of meanings. The former is embodied by widows primarily seeking “nurturant support” who expect self-oriented and relationship-focused service behaviour on the part of service providers, and the latter by widows primarily seeking “action-facilitating” support who expect “task-oriented” service behaviour from service providers. These results should allow service providers to be aware of when to prioritize the task, the self and/or the relationship, to provide a successful service encounter for consumers of bereavement services.

The recent spate of farmer’s suicide in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India has left many of those households in the charge of widows. These are the women left behind to live for their children after their husband committed suicide, unable to bear the burden of their debts anymore. The surviving family members of those who killed themselves in distress are prone to depression and tend to have suicidal tendencies too. They are experiencing exclusion in day to day life. This research paper is based on empirical study. Hundred Respondents from Wardha district of Vidarbha region are interviewed. For these widows, life is a tale of suffering and Harassment. Their relations with their in-law soured to a great extent after their husband committed suicide. They have to struggle for basic human rights. They are facing physical, sexual, mental, emotional and economic exclusion in day-to-day life. Sexual exploitation is not a common occurrence, but it does exist. The mental and emotional violence is much more. According to them, ‘The humiliation is greater than the pain of husband’s suicide’. The village social system has many pitfalls for such women. Because of widowhood, in several arenas her quality of life and capabilities have worsened.

This paper deals with suffering and various aspect of social exclusion faced by widows of the farmer and the role of social fabric in handling these problems.