Adaptation to the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Older Adults in the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic is a constraint to leisure behaviour of historic proportions. Paradoxically, it might also be a catalyst for a reconsideration of the importance of leisure to well-being in later life. This paradox, on a smaller scale, was addressed previously by Kleiber. In their examination of how factors constraining behaviour may actually produce enduring benefits for individuals. The proposition explored in this paper is that COVID-19 and its concomitant circumstances and social problems provoke an alteration in leisure activity and experience in the process of adjusting not only to the pandemic but also to the aging process. Prominent theories of adaptation in later life suggest that the changes that occur in response to negative events in later life are more limited than those occurring in earlier adulthood and that older adults may have resilience for dealing with its effects. This paper focuses on two categories of positive constraint outcomes from the model of beneficial constraint developed by Kleiber et al. (2008). An examination of data from a variety of sources provides limited support for occurrence of these aspects of the model and for its special relevance to this pandemic period.