MEN’S GENDER CAPITAL EXPERIENCES IN LATER LIFE

Abstract

Over the last decade there have been substantial advances in understanding the gendered dimensions of ageing. Prior studies have mostly dealt with understanding the lives of older women while largely neglecting or omitting older men. The focus on women facing disadvantages in socio-economic and marital status has shifted to men’s post-work and health issues in the last few decades, and only recently to masculinities and gender capital in later life. Contemporary discussions on cultural and gender capital bring relevant recognition and somehow unintentionally reveal that gender can matter to the same extent or even more in old age than in childhood or adulthood. This article analyses the results of semi-structured in-depth interviews with 98 men aged 60 or more and other data collected in Slovenia as part of the Old Guys Erasmus+ project. The project results are in line with recent studies on gender capital and masculinities, and justify why older men should be seen, discussed and examined as individual agents who practice, perform and produce gender in later life too. They also explain why hegemonic masculinity is only one aspect of gendered life experiences and that different masculine realities stand alongside each other and are as necessary for men in later life as femininities are for women, particularly in contemporary societies where both aged men and women are seen and represented as de-gendered, un-gendered or even genderless.