Coping Strategies of Older Widows in Nigeria

Widowhood is commonly viewed as a life transition. A transition is a major change in life circumstances that takes place over a relatively short period of time but has lasting effects on large areas of a person's life. It requires the development of new life habits or ways of coping. Widowhood is one of the most stressful life transitions, although most people adjust successfully over time. Most research on widowhood has focused on women, mostly because widows outnumber widowers by nearly five to one. It is estimated that half of all marriages end with the death of the husband, only one-fifth end with the death of the wife in western societies, and women generally outlive men and men usually marry women who are younger than they are. Further, while most older widowed people do not remarry, widowers have remarriage rate over eight times as high as those of widows.