ABSTRACT
Old people spend a larger part of the day in their dwelling than do any other adult age group. They devote most of their time to the repetitive activities of daily living concerned with personal needs and household work. More than most others are they bound to reconstruct their roles and social identity through the trivialities of daily life, a fact which ought to make the management of everyday life a central field of social gerontological research. The present paper reports from a study on the self-sufficiency and sex-role differences of single and couple households in their everyday living. Samples from two Norwegian communities, a city and a small town, is compared. How the local environment seems to be reflected in the organization of everyday tasks is discussed.
