Paper short abstract:

Drawing from a study of aging in Denmark, the paper analyzes the uncertainty and disquiet expressed by several widows and bachelors entering the later life course living on their own. The paper asks what is at stake for these interlocutors as they grow older in a Scandinavian welfare state.

Paper long abstract:

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork focused on aging in Denmark and carried out among people aged 50-75 years in the rural municipality of Vordingborg, the paper describes and analyzes the uncertainty and disquiet expressed by several widows and bachelors entering the later life course living on their own. In the cases of both widows and bachelors, they had not imagined that they would enter the later life course alone. Some are trying to find a (new) partner, while others are investing heavily in social networks and civic organizations in trying to make up for their lone status or loss. The paper thus sheds light on the lives led by the young old at a time, where longevity and new technologies have significantly altered the scripts of life without necessarily providing the answer as to how one should live such a life (on one's own). Reading the ethnographic cases against anthropological and sociological theories of the life course, the paper aims to shed light on both the effects and the affects of longevity as it plays out for men and women who find themselves in differing but overlapping situations. The paper asks how they respond to uncertainties of health, the need for care and comfort, and - in some cases - a yearning for love?