Racism and the Life Course: Social and Health Equity for Older Black Americans

Abstract Racism and the Life Course: Social and Health Equity for Older Black Americans examines the impacts of systemic racism on adult development and the aging trajectories of Black Americans. Using the life course perspective (e.g., socio-historical events, linked lives), we discuss systemic racism as a structural driver of practices and policies (e.g., racial residential segregation) that have shaped the social and health circumstances of older Black Americans. These life circumstances include high rates of poverty, poor housing and neighborhood conditions, worse health profiles, and relationship loss and social isolation—conditions that, for too many older Black adults, represent the ‘normal’ state of affairs. Creating a ‘new normal’ of social and health equity for older Black Americans requires recognizing and disrupting the operation of systemic racism in our policies and practices. Selected recommendations and actions for achieving health and social equity for older Black Americans are discussed.

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“I AM a Man”: Manhood, Minority Men’s Health and Health Equity

Ethnicity & Disease ◽

10.18865/ed.25.3.287 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 25 (3) ◽

pp. 287 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Derek M. Griffith, PhD

Keyword(s):

Social Norms ◽

Life Course ◽

Health Outcomes ◽

Health Equity ◽

Stress Responses ◽

Men’S Health ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

Men's Health ◽

The Life Course ◽

Over Time

Objective: To consider how manhood is a key social determinant of minority men’s health.Design: This commentary explicates how manhood intersects with other determinants of health to shape minority men’s stress responses, health behaviors and health outcomes across the life course.Results: Manhood, which perpetually needs to be proven, is an aspirational identity that is defined by the intersection of age, race/ethnicity and other identities. Minority men seek to and successfully embody US-cultural and ethnic-specific aspects of manhood in their daily lives by engaging in behaviors that constantly reaffirm their gender identity through a complex internal and social calculus that varies by intra-personal characteristics and context. Manhood and health are relational constructs that highlight how the salience of masculinities are shaped by perceived and actual social norms and expectations. A life course perspective adds a framework for considering how some gendered beliefs, goals and behaviors change over time while others remain static. Three life course frameworks highlight different mechanisms through which minority men’s life experiences and physiological and behavioral responses to gendered social norms, beliefs and expectations become embodied as premature mortality and other health outcomes over the life course.Conclusion: Manhood represents an important lens to understand how minority men’s identities, goals and priorities affect their health, yet the role of manhood in minority men’s health is understudied and underdeveloped. To achieve health equity, it is critical to consider how manhood shapes minority men’s lives and health across the life course, and to address how manhood affects gendered and non-gendered mechanisms and pathways that explain minority men’s health over time. Ethn Dis. 2015;25(3):287-293.

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Uma perspectiva sobre fãs ao longo da trajetória de vida*

Matrizes ◽

10.11606/issn.1982-8160.v10i1p27-53 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 27

Author(s):

C. Lee Harrington ◽

Denise D. Bielby

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Media Studies ◽

Adult Development ◽

Later Life ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

Fan Studies ◽

The Life Course ◽

Over Time

In this article we explore a life course perspective on fandom, with particular emphasis on fandom and adult development. While there is growing interest in issues of age and aging within fan studies and within media studies more broadly, there is a tendency in this literature to discuss aging and the life course atheoretically, ignoring a rich body of scholarship in fields that examines how lives unfold over time. Our goal in this manuscript is to make explicit what is typically rendered implicit in fan studies to enrich our understanding of long-term and later-life fandom, and to suggest ways that fan studies might more fully account for fandom over time

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Life Course Themes in Japanese Americans’ Dementia Care Profiles

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igaa057.1763 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. 542-542

Author(s):

Juyoung Park ◽

Kyong Hee Chee ◽

Angelica Yeh

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Cultural Context ◽

The United States ◽

Dementia Care ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

Japanese Americans ◽

Cultural Aspects ◽

Linked Lives ◽

The Life Course ◽

Video Project

Abstract The “Faces of Caregiving” video project highlights the social and cultural aspects of dementia care as shared by seven Japanese Americans. We performed a content analysis of the narratives in the videos, and prominent themes included stigma, gender, resilience, and values placed on family and community. We also applied the life course perspective in examining each care trajectory and found the principles of historical time, linked lives, timing, and human agency to be not only relevant but also useful for a comprehensive understanding of the shared and unique care experiences of Japanese Americans. These results have significant practical implications in that they inform a conceptual template for developing similar video projects for other Asian ethnic groups in the United States. The video project can be replicated within an appropriate cultural context, and such a culturally sensitive approach can help better meet diverse ethnic minorities’ unmet needs for information and education. Part of a symposium sponsored by the Aging Among Asians Interest Group.

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A Multilevel Qualitative Perspective to Gendered Life Course, Socialization, and STEM Trajectories Among Emerging Adults in Spain

Emerging Adulthood ◽

10.1177/21676968211021678 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 216769682110216

Author(s):

Alisa Petroff ◽

Milagros Sáinz ◽

Lídia Arroyo

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Emerging Adults ◽

Gender Stereotypes ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

College Completion ◽

Structural Context ◽

Linked Lives ◽

Micro Level ◽

The Life Course ◽

Depth Interviews

The present study examines the five principles of the life course perspective—life span development, time and place, agency, timing, and linked lives—and their interplay on the experiences of 26 emerging adults (11 males and 15 females) during their transition from college completion into the STEM labor force in Spain. Findings derived from the in-depth interviews focus on the multilevel challenges these young people face and the set of strategies they develop to overcome them. From a gender perspective, the challenges reveal the structural inequalities (many associated with existing gender stereotypes) that women encounter throughout their educational and professional trajectory. The research also identifies how these women and men display agentic features (at a micro-level) and mobilize different types of networks (at a meso-level) to overcome this adverse structural context, especially, during the economic post-crisis in Spain.

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Joint Family and Work Trajectories and Multidimensional Wellbeing

European Journal of Population / Revue européenne de Démographie ◽

10.1007/s10680-021-09583-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

C. L. Comolli ◽

L. Bernardi ◽

M. Voorpostel

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Subjective Wellbeing ◽

Work And Family ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

Full Time ◽

Social Origin ◽

Employment Trajectories ◽

Family And Work ◽

The Life Course ◽

Family Trajectories

AbstractInformed by the life course perspective, this paper investigates whether and how employment and family trajectories are jointly associated with subjective, relational and financial wellbeing later in life. We draw on data from the Swiss Household Panel which combines biographical retrospective information on work, partnership and childbearing trajectories with 19 annual waves containing a number of wellbeing indicators as well as detailed socio-demographic and social origin information. We use sequence analysis to identify the main family and work trajectories for men and women aged 20–50 years old. We use OLS regression models to assess the association between those trajectories and their interdependency with wellbeing. Results reveal a joint association between work and family trajectories and wellbeing at older age, even net of social origin and pre-trajectory resources. For women, but not for men, the association is also not fully explained by proximate (current family and work status) determinants of wellbeing. Women’s stable full-time employment combined with traditional family trajectories yields a subjective wellbeing premium, whereas childlessness and absence of a stable partnership over the life course is associated with lower levels of financial and subjective wellbeing after 50 especially in combination with a trajectory of weak labour market involvement. Relational wellbeing is not associated with employment trajectories, and only weakly linked to family trajectories among men.

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Persistent short-term imprisonment: Belonging as a lens to understand its shifting meanings over the life course

Incarceration ◽

10.1177/2632666321989018 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 263266632198901

Author(s):

Marguerite Schinkel ◽

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Sense Of Belonging ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

Criminal Punishment ◽

Short Term ◽

Men And Women ◽

The Life Course ◽

Looking Back

This article takes a life-course perspective to the meaning of persistent short-term imprisonment and introduces the significance of ‘penal careers’. Examining a total of 62 interviews with men and women in Scotland with long careers of (progression through) criminal punishment, it uses to the concept of belonging as a lens to interpret their experiences. While some participants already felt early on in their career that they belonged in prison because of their shared characteristics with other prisoners, the repetition of imprisonment meant that they increasingly felt displaced from life outside and saw life in prison as ‘easier’ and ‘safer’. Nevertheless, looking back on their many sentences, they felt their cumulative meaning was ‘a waste of life’. The article concludes by considering steps towards tackling the conditions that create this sense of belonging in a place of punishment.

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Foster Care in a Life Course Perspective

The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science ◽

10.1177/0002716220976535 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 692 (1) ◽

pp. 227-252

Author(s):

Fred Wulczyn

Keyword(s):

Foster Care ◽

Life Course ◽

Social Services ◽

Foster Children ◽

Foster Parents ◽

Local Variation ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

State And Local ◽

Policy Priority ◽

The Life Course

To understand what placement outside of one’s home means to the young people involved, we must understand foster care from a life course perspective. I analyze young people’s experiences in foster care from this perspective, accounting for when foster care happens, how long it lasts, and what happens when foster care placements end. I show that the population of children coming into foster care is younger and less urban than it was 20 years ago. I also show reliable measures of exposure to foster care over the life course. Children who enter care early in life are the children who spend the largest proportion of their childhood in foster care—a fact that rarely weighs on the policymaking process. We know very little about state and local variation in foster care placement rates, not to mention the influence of social services, the courts, foster parents, and caseworkers over foster children, so I close by arguing investment in research should be a clear policy priority.

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SUITABLE? THE RHETORICAL AND LIFE COURSE IMPLICATIONS OF SERENA WILLIAMS AND THE CATSUIT

Innovation in Aging ◽

10.1093/geroni/igz038.1972 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽

pp. S537-S537

Author(s):

Brianne M Stanback

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Los Angeles ◽

Life Course ◽

New York Times ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

Power Structures ◽

Los Angeles Times ◽

Race And Class ◽

Sports Illustrated ◽

The Life Course

Abstract Rhetorical inquires have shown connections between representation and power, workplace fashion and development of ethos, and the rhetoric of glamour through women’s fashion and dress. One element absent from that conversation is how the life course, which typically differs for women because of existing power structures advantaging men, may impact the experience of women as they age, their choice of dress, and the rhetorical implications of those decisions. To explore dress and rhetoric from a life course perspective, this project traces the evolution of Serena Williams’ work apparel across her professional tennis career to the catsuit worn at the 2018 French Open, which is the focus of the project. Press reports on the 2018 catsuit by Nike, New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Business Insider, BBC Sport, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, interviews given by Williams, and the television documentary, Becoming Serena, will be analyzed for their treatment of Williams’ work attire and the life course. Responses to the catsuit emphasize attitudes about gender, race, and class, either discounting or ignoring the life course implications such as motherhood and changes in health status. Despite professional success, responses about the catsuit may reflect that Williams faces the same jeopardies, and invisibility, common to many women as they age, and the rhetorical perspective provides new methodological and pedagogical possibilities for instruction in aging.

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Facilitating mechanisms for integrating care to promote health equity across the life course: reflections from social work trainees

Social Work in Health Care ◽

10.1080/00981389.2018.1531105 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 58 (1) ◽

pp. 60-74

Author(s):

Rebecca Reno ◽

Brieanne Beaujolais ◽

Tamara S. Davis

Keyword(s):

Social Work ◽

Life Course ◽

Health Equity ◽

The Life Course

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Development of Violence Across the Lifespan: A Preliminary Model

10.26686/wgtn.16993093.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Janneke Van't Klooster

Keyword(s):

Life Course ◽

Life Course Perspective ◽

Development Model ◽

Rehabilitation Unit ◽

Preliminary Model ◽

Holistic Understanding ◽

Pathways Model ◽

The Life Course ◽

Adult Rehabilitation ◽

Age Range

Violence has serious implications for both the victim and the wider community. The current adult rehabilitation programmes accept violent offenders ranged from 20 years and older. This age range could have serious rehabilitation consequences, as a twenty year olds violence and violence related goals may differ substantially to a 70 year old. For this reason an understanding of the development of violence and violence related goals can aide rehabilitation and punitive policies. A review of recent research highlights there are many methodological and empirical gaps in the development of violence whereby the current research aimed to assuage this issue. The current research used grounded theory to develop a model on the development of violence over the life-course. For this research twelve men currently incarcerated at Rimutaka Prison in a violence rehabilitation unit were interviewed. This method developed two models. The “Influences on violence development” model outlines how environment and personal choices had an impact on the development of violence. The “development of violence” model outlines the increasing severity and frequency of violence over time, and the increasing complexity of violence related goals. This model is nested within the influences on violence development model. Comparing the current models to Loeber et al's (1993) pathways model, and Sampson and Laub's life-course perspective on offending, has found support for both models. Thus this model's theoretical value lies within its ability to draw together other areas of research and provide a holistic understanding of both how and why violence develops. One implication of these models is the understanding of the varying influences of environment on violence, upon both different individuals and different ages. This implies that rehabilitation should perhaps follow a more individual based focus. There are many limitations to the research, the most salient one being lack of saturation in the model and low sample size.

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