Discrepancies between subjective importance and actual everyday practice among very old adults and the consequences for autonomy

Introduction and backgroundOld age is a phase of life that is less institutionally structured. After retirement and the children have left home, older adults are widely relieved of duties imposed by the labor market and family members. This creates an autonomous life situation and the need for people to organize their day to day lives according to their own ideas, attitudes, and orientations. These attitudes and orientations are based on a person’s dispositions that are considered to be relatively stable over the life course and that determine everyday practices, such as daily routines [4, 22]; however, especial…