Diss. Helsingfors : University of Helsinki. Department of Psychology, 2005

Independent out-of-home mobility is an important contributor to well-being in old age, and has direct and indirect effects on different aspects of everyday life. The mobility of older persons has also recently been targeted as one of the top priorities within the transportation sector. Well-informed policymaking requires more research evidence. In particular, knowledge about older women road users is scarce, yet the majority of the ageing population is female. Understanding older women's mobility and transportation issues is also essential in that gender and age have intersecting effects on the transportation system in terms of mobility. The purpose of the present dissertation is to examine older women's mobility options and obstacles from a cross-disciplinary perspective. The work comprises four empirical studies. The data for two of them came from a postal survey on driving cessation, and the participants were Finnish women aged 70 (in 1997), who had or had previously had a driver license. The data for the third study was gathered from a postal survey on mobility options, and the participants were Finnish persons aged 65+ (in 2001). The fourth study comprised ten unstructured interviews with Swedish women aged 69-87 (in 2002). The framework of the dissertation combines moderate realist and constructionist approaches. The work takes theoretical insights from both feminism and critical gerontology, and the data analysis incorporates statistical methods and narrative analysis.