Social Dynamics of the Life Course: Transitions, Institutions, and Interrelations Edited by Walter R. Heinz and Victor W. Marshall Aldine De Gruyter. 2003.306 pages. $55.95 (hardcover); $27.95 (paperback)

Social Forces ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 1305-1306
Author(s):  
J. B. Brown
Author(s):  
Günther Schmid

New social risks have arisen due to the deepening of global labour division and the invasion of digital technologies into the production of goods and the delivery of services, but also due to changing preferences and individual work capacities over the life course. As these risks are not only connected with unemployment but also with income volatility due to critical life-course transitions (in particular, between family work and labour-market work, lifelong learning and employment), the need to extend unemployment insurance (UI) towards a system of employment insurance becomes evident. This argument is developed by focusing on the investment character of social insurance against the mainstream view of moral hazard related to any insurance, and by providing good practices or opportunities from various European member states.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S588-S588
Author(s):  
Dale Dannefer ◽  
Christopher Phillipson ◽  
Dale Dannefer

Abstract This symposium addresses debates around the theme of precarity and its implications for understanding social and economic changes affecting the lives of older people. To date, the concept of precarity has been applied to several subpopulations by various academic disciplines but has yet to be systematically applied to later life. The symposium will give particular attention to the extent to which the lens provided by precarity can illuminate different types of inequalities experienced through the life course and reflected in public policies directed at older people. Chris Phillipson reviews theoretical perspectives relating to precarity, examining their potential contribution for the development of critical gerontology. His paper also considers the extent to which the concept of ‘precarious ageing’ offers a competing or complementary view to theories of ‘active’ and ‘successful ageing’. Larry Polivka examines the growing precarity of life for older Americans emanating from austerity budgets and privatization of public services. The paper suggests that policies such as health care and long term care are in jeopardy, creating a glide path toward the extension of precarious employment into a precarious retirement for millions of older people. Wenxuan Huang examines how the focus on agency and other individual-level foci obscure understanding of social dynamics. Finally, Amanda Grenier draws on a scoping review of precarity to outline conceptual distinctions between frailty, vulnerability, and precarity. She presents reflections on what these concepts offer in terms of understandings of late life the study of disadvantage across the life course.


2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (4) ◽  
pp. 351-372 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret M. Manoogian ◽  
Juliana Vandenbroeke ◽  
Amy Ringering ◽  
Tamina Toray ◽  
Eric Cooley

This qualitative study examined the experience of grandparent death among 74 emerging adults enrolled in college. Guided by the life course perspective, the authors specifically explored (a) participant responses to the death, (b) how family systems were influenced by the loss of the grandparent, and (c) how grandparent death motivated life course transitions for emerging adults. The findings suggest that the death trajectory, level of attachment, the role the grandchild played in the family, as well as the coping style utilized affected participants' grief processes. This study underscores the importance of the grandchild–grandparent tie, how new death experiences create meaning and ritual, and how life course transitions are motivated when an older family member dies. Implications for providing support on college campuses when emerging adults experience grandparent death are highlighted.


1988 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara K. Hareven ◽  
Kanji Masaoka

This study uses American (Manchester, New Hampshire) and Japanese (Shizuoka) cohorts in 1910–1950 to explore the similarities and differences between “life-course transitions,” defined as the movements of individuals and families within socially constructed time-tables; and “life-course turning points,” which represent individuals' subjective assessment of continuities and discontinuities over their lives. Considerable differences are found among cohorts in each society, but there are also similarities that cut across both societies. Whereas cultural differences in the timing of life transitions and the subjective construction of the life course are significant, the common experience of cohorts in response to shared historical events may transcend cultural differences.


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 596-596
Author(s):  
Helen Barrie ◽  
Debbie Faulkner ◽  
Laurence Lester

Abstract Home is central to health and wellbeing; yet the changing nature of work, household dynamics and especially housing markets, with scant policy attention and action around this, means low-middle income households are struggling in many countries. In Australia, while older people are considered to be at less risk because of higher levels of home ownership, there is a growing body of evidence about the living situations of older people who have not attained or retained home ownership over the life course and have limited wealth and savings moving into later life. This paper presents the findings of multivariate regression modelling using HILDA, a national longitudinal panel survey, to identify the profile(s) of older people at risk of homelessness in Australia. The data makes it clear a range of structural and individual factors across the life course are increasingly impacting on the ability to live a good life in older age.


2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Ware ◽  
Moira Maconachie ◽  
Malcolm Williams ◽  
Joan Chandler ◽  
Brian Dodgeon

In recent years there has been much political debate in the popular media about the fate of the nuclear family in the UK. Very little work has been done, using population data, to actually demonstrate the decline, or indeed continuance of this type of household formation. In this paper we use Office for National Statistics (ONS) longitudinal census data, from England and Wales, to explore the formation, dissolution and continuance of the nuclear family household over a twenty year period (1981- 2001). Our findings indicate a continuing importance of this household arrangement, however routes into and trajectories from nuclear family households take different forms for men and women across the life course.


2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 567-590 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Lee Harrington ◽  
Denise D. Bielby ◽  
Anthony R. Bardo

We explore the future of media fandom through integrating insights from gerontology, human development, fan studies, and marketing. Given population aging and the dismantling of the normative 20th-century life course, along with rapid changes in the extent to which our lives are mediated, fandom is undergoing significant modification. We focus on how new findings on emotional maturation over the life course and scholarly identification of self-narrativization as a resource for 21st-century aging suggest ways that fandom may change over time.


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