The purpose of this study is to gain an in-depth understanding of the meaningful life experiences of middle-aged women and comprehensively examine the results of those experiences by systematically comparing, analyzing, interpreting, and synthesizing qualitative research results that explore middle-aged women’s life experiences including menopause, climacteric, and aging. Meta-ethnography proposed by Noblit and Hare was used for qualitative meta-synthesis. The literature was searched in domestic databases: DataBase Periodical Information Academic (DBpia), Research Information Sharing Service (RISS), ScienceON, National Assembly Digital Library, Korean studies Information Service System (KISS), and Korea Citation Index (KCI). Search terms included ‘middle-aged women,’ ‘life,’ ‘menopause,’ ‘menopause symptoms,’ ‘climacteric,’ ‘aging,’ ‘change,’ ‘perception,’ and ‘adaptation.’ Finally, 13 qualitative studies were analyzed and synthesized. The central experience of Korean middle-aged women’s lives was ‘internal growth and reinterpretation of the meanings of life’, and four themes were derived: ‘understanding of and active responses to physical changes’, ‘acceptance of and internal reflection on emotional changes and active responses to them’, ‘reestablishment of interpersonal relati...