Considering Life Course Concepts

In limning the etymology of the concept of the life course, Alwin makes a number of prime points and paves the way toward further conceptual development. For me, one of the more prominent takeaway messages is that there is no standard model—to borrow a phrase from particle physics. He makes clear that life course analysis is not an exact science, and, sticking with the same analogy for a bit longer, there is a hierarchical problem in explaining the fluidity in the constellation of factors influencing life courses. Some things matter more for some than for others or else deflect trajectories in some instances in such a way that it is a challenge to explain the resulting disparities. Alwin proffers a Baedeker’s guide that will help focus the métier of social gerontologists as they attempt to make sense of the life course. No doubt the debate about whether there is a “theory of the life course” will persist but what we have with Alwin’s exegesis is a closer handle on evaluating what is variously said to be a perspective, paradigm, or theory. Examining the life course is about analyzing change. From birth until death lives are in flux. A life course perspective is about examining changes, whether they be biological, developmental (including social and psychological factors), historical, or geographic and attempting to identify which factors affect the arc of change, and what transformations change bring. Some of what goes on occurs because of intrinsic dynamics called ontogenetic forces that are inherent, built into our biology, and moving us along life’s path. Some change can be attributed to when, where, and how we live, who we are, and where we fit into the social structures in which we are ensconced. Many scholars assert the ways we grow up and grow old are socially constructed, normative, or prescriptive. Yet, because humans are sentient beings, we do not just take change as given, we impose meaning on it and bend it to our purposes—of course we take direction from it as well. In a manner of speaking, under optimal circumstances, we reinvent ourselves with each transition as transformed meanings take shape. Of course, optimal circumstances are neither equitably distributed nor sometimes even possible. In each of the five variations outlined in Alwin’s essay, it is clear that a life course perspective allows us to look at life, attend to differences in circumstances be they psychological, sociological, biological, economic, or demographic, and consider what roles they play in explaining why we have diverse experiences as we grow up and grow old. To expand a bit in my reflections on some of Alwin’s assertions cutting across the five variants, in each instance, there is the basic question: What is it that gives shape to our lives? There is no shortage of answers to questions about change, and not surprisingly, diverse disciplines look at change through characteristic lenses. In mathematics, as a clever calculus book might say, calculus is about solving problems about things that change and those who study change are interested in how fast and how much. They scrutinize rate of change and net changes under prescribed conditions. Biologists look at change by examining the unfolding, sustenance, and eventual diminishment of biological processes and sometimes those external factors that affect the process. Psychologists are of two minds: one focusing on development and aging fueled by unfolding intrinsic or ontogenetic forces and the other championing a viewpoint grounded in social circumstances as a force propelling change. The initial round of life course explanations began around World War I and despite some important work in France on contextual factors the latter did not really begin to be included until the 1960s as some social scientists launched a critique of life span perspectives and their claim that patterns and stages of human development are not nearly as universal as previously claimed (Cain, 1964). Their point was that it is a misconception to assume that life is composed of fixed stages that inevitably and invariably unfold with convincingly predictable beginnings and endings. Another point was that people do not develop or grow old insulated from the conditions in which they are grounded (cf. Riegel, 1975). As Alwin avers, sociologists, among others, formulated an alternative paradigm of life course analyses that emphasized cultural factors, social circumstances, and social interactions as the building blocks of change, integral to understanding the life course. This dialectical interaction between people and their contexts emphasizes that people are not passive beings, rather they create and manipulate their environments individually and collectively. Despite his attentiveness to the work of those two eminent grise in matters of the life course, Featherman and Elder, Alwin’s exposition do not take into account the work of the psychologist, Klaus Riegel (1975) who became an early point of reference for those maintaining the life course and individual biographies are contingent on person–environment interaction. He does, however, acknowledge the essential work of the sociologist C. Wright Mills in noting that the intersection of biography and history are central to what happens to individuals. Without meaning to quibble, Alwin does not appear to be au fait with Anthony Giddens’ (1991) constructive contributions to current considerations of social environmental opportunities and constraints (Settersten, 1999). One obvious question is why should we care whether one more authority is cited? The short answer is that Giddens provides an informative point of view on the correlates of what Cain, Riley, and other social scientists call age status, a socially constructed concept grounded in particular circumstances that provides a red thread connecting actors to the social capital at their disposal, roles and opportunities open to them, how they experience life, and how they are perceived by others. Extrapolating a bit, age status imposes prescriptions and expectations for how we think and how we behave. I am among those who would assert that by looking at what happens to people in a life course perspective, we are implicitly assuming that the nature of one’s experience and life’s unfolding are interrelated. We assume that both commonalities among and differences between people are rooted in life experiences and that those experiences are grounded in social circumstances (Giddens, 1991). We might think of it as life’s pathways being benchmarked by the milestones of age. As Riley asserts, age grades and age statuses are central to life’s unfolding, to our social interactions, our access to opportunities, to our conceptions of ourselves, and to our explication of the life course. Alwin is effectual in pointing out that none of us moves through life alone, insulated from what is going on around us, and that we are all embedded in our lifeworlds. Alwin’s essay corroborates the contention that actors do not grow up or grow old unaffected by broader social forces. By that I mean to say our identities, our sense of self, and how we experience aging are all relational, reflecting a variety of social networks, social capital, and the contextual circumstances in which we live. As social contexts or social networks change, diverse influences come into the picture, altering life course trajectories. Again, Giddens (1991) provides an important alloy to life course analyses as he goes to great lengths to emphasize that a society’s institutions and social policies are components of an actor’s social context and axiomatic to an actor’s life. In one of my rare differences of opinion with Alwin, I feel he might have given greater attention to the role of such social institutions as educational systems, normative marriage or retirement patterns, and other socially agreed upon conditions that are not mere external events but establish many of the dimensions of the life course. The same can be said of formal public policies, such as laws, entitlements, and eligibility criteria spelled out by those policies that also contour the life course. Some social policies may not be formal, but they are normative, and they, too, pose parameters within which actors spend their lives. Whether formal or informal, these policies provide principles framing life for apportioning options, relational life space, and benchmarks by which the life course is circumscribed. Questions surrounding societal institutions, economic shifts, and social stratification are among the hot topics being explored by life course researchers, and underscoring them more would have given greater leverage to Alwin’s already sharp-eyed insights. Of course, the role of a commentator is to point out other prime issues deserving of greater attention, and one that comes readily to mind revolves around how social forces have differential affects on women and men. As is the case with so many other aspects of life, there is every reason to assume trajectories and experiences of either women or men are going to be distinct. Of course, comparable questions are relevant to racial or ethnic differences that may unfold over the life course that might reflect exclusion, isolation, inequities, and related social status. The point is that these master status conditions of life shape how it unfolds by arraying both resources and risks and affecting how such phenomena as health and morbidity reflect these resource and risk issues grounded by gender, race, and issues of inequality. Too frequently, they are taken for granted, seen as an indicator of how things are, with few questions asked about their constitutive roles in life experiences (Mayer, 2009; O’Rand, 2006). Most sociologists agree that there are countless commonalities adhering to group memberships: crosscutting regularities that arise from social institutions and significant impacts of structural location giving rise to observable life patterns. The latter issue, that of structural location, more commonly called social class or socioeconomic status, cannot be overemphasized in the discussion of the life course as access to life’s chances surely influences life’s outcomes. In addition, outcomes are cumulative, piling atop one another, and yielding both continuity and change in our lives. Brofenbrenner (1979) provides a key interpretative frame by casting life as a social construction captured in his notion of an “ecology of human development” to characterize the contextualized relationships that create what we think of as the life course. Although the exact nature of the effects is sometimes debated, Alwin is correct in stating that there is consensus about life’s contexts, including what happens first, affecting what happens later. Having said that, I am of the opinion that we need to closely examine the claim that later life is contingent and continuous at the same time that the process is ongoing from beginning to end with successive sequela building upon the preceding. Each new step is a building block for the next steps, always predicated on what happened earlier. In a noteworthy contribution to our understanding of the process, Berkman, Ertel, and Glymour (2011) delineate three alternative models for thinking about the ways in which experience carries forward. Their discussion was formulated in terms of health epidemiology with its emphasis on outcomes being the result of earlier experiences, but in my opinion, the principles they explicate are applicable to all life course research. What Figure 1 depicts are three alternative models for thinking about how earlier events influence later outcomes. In the top trajectory, early life experiences are thought to be highly significant, regardless of whether they are grounded in fetal conditions, relative economic status, individual factors, or social conditions that shape later outcomes almost independently of events occurring in-between. The effects of the early experience may not be immediately evident, and, in fact, they may not become apparent for years to come. Nonetheless, they are capable of shaping outcomes that do not materialize for years or even decades. The contention is that early life experiences are embodied in the individual upon their occurrence and have a direct impact on not only later circumstances but also a variety of later life outcomes. As should be evident from the causal arrows, contextual factors may have no impact on later life health effects as it is the early occurrence that makes all the In the context in which they formulated the and (2011) on health conditions in later life and assert that early inevitably out in the early events need not be to later life they emphasize that some of the early life may be social experiences of a variety of perspectives for thinking about the life course. The social conditions as factors, what happens In each instance, social conditions to a of events and experiences occurring the Some of these may be influences such as public policies and in social institutions, such as and so but others are individual As might be by the of there are both direct and influences of and In other both early and life events to have both and influence on later life conditions. 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Alwin on a number of points in what he terms his as an age course He emphasizes dimensions such a in terms of a of and the of the concept of a life for sense of what we the impact of and and the role of stages or in out of To how Alwin or other questions by a life course it is to a of principles to the As as it may at a life course perspective may be by a number of is not to say that each with all in but to say that they out a in such a way that none are those who establish the for looking at life through a life course Elder, and Elder, and and a of others have the principles as a for evaluating life course To the life course, we need to that our lives are to others around of us are to others through a of social relationships and through life as in a From those we a great of what may be as social capital, a resource that us make our way in the Whether in the or in or in other a great of and our lives are by those with we have and who as significant others from we take our and are integral to how we think of relationships make a in the life course and those relationships as resources of life course its the of these social Another life course consider essential to how life unfolds is of aspects of time and is one of those phenomena on a number of and is by each and they are to for of and are essential to understanding the life course There is neither nor reason to into the many aspects of time that but a short is Alwin’s does consider the impact of history as The in which a lives a on the life course, and attention to it life’s years a life course than being only was life but also the of life was than the dimensions of experience more than is the case The conditions of life in the and more than the circumstances of those in the are with the influence of time or context on life experiences through our concept of a years old in was than being years old in The of and age at the two points in history on life life, and so life course need to the concept of not only as a birth but also as a cultural who meanings and look at the in as a of the effects of experiences at those who in look at the through a than those years in are with in of economic structures within a and the of giving to the meaning of they result in the of which look at the in on either of the are an and a of what is called a of age and The basic notion of history analysis is that where a is in life events makes a in how they affect is relevant in at two other ways as well. an benchmarks and are into all there are social which normative influences over individual lives. or those of help individual lives and time through age who their are sometimes with of The may be or the point is that is grounded in surrounding cultural structures have or for educational force or formal retirement with their and through in successive age statuses that meaning to the that is the life course. In fact, a number of scholars that the of work life, along with other social institutions, a great about how the life course unfolds and the two are The thinking is that the by the events in life’s reflect what is social pathways and in individual biographies as as the and perspectives in age and time is time by it structures the of life and is by the The age grades of a of is however, that may be meaning or experiences the normative parameters and may not be with other In many being on at a of at the end no more than a that one some from others out The of time that to be is time or its biological to time is with social time to one’s a is in life will the impact of external events and experiences and that location is central to understanding why and how events have one or As a matter of fact, as we through life, the way we think about and ourselves may and our Some of how we think about time and experience to do with the nature of the of our biological are just of but they do the of our biological and A great many scholars that the we have of which is grounded in these and is and of a life course sense of time as we also our and As thinking we meaning to time and that meaning is contingent on a of societal time and individual people think only of the they think and they think This thinking about what is to as sense of is of time grounded in the life course. Some scholars that sense of as life goes others say it ourselves what already those of as it or what is to is central to the way we think of ourselves and our life course. Most life course that the way we think about time is developmental and such phenomena as health status, other life experiences, and Another relevant to the of life course is one Alwin readily the role of or As I on the it to say where we live, as as affects as as how life is where we affects how lives to the point but can also be on a in a only just or not launched toward is than in a in a for no other and there are the nature of work will a great from one to another, even all are of the in a of the where is and the of change is is than in a where the of life is where are rooted in ways of and where are not a of to be is the that in a where risk or is might to experiences than in a location is of location that the life course. As Alwin avers, Riley and a of other sociologists are to thinking about socioeconomic hierarchical stratification that occurs in all There is no doubt that our within that structural stratification affects a great about our lives by of access to opportunities and constraints on individual and our into and out of social roles reflect our relative in the social speaking, those from status more as they but those from status experience more What social scientists to as social capital such and influences the shape of the life course. The of risks or other are as important as the of we can The of social location is that access and opportunities to resources are and in affect how life of the is so that we through life in with one There are patterns, but these are not individual prescriptions that cannot be Many of us have the to affect how our lives scientists of meaning that we as are in meaning and shaping outcomes. Some of us have more or that we can make a and that life is not in but regardless of that we each have the to our way within our that we do not have to some and fast or normative but have a of to In we do not all social rather we individual or and that result in our individual life course. what is the takeaway One important is that the process is ongoing from beginning to end with successive sequela building one upon Each new step may be a building block for the next either or The point is that the experience of life is cumulative, and so in to make sense of given we need to consider lives in the contexts in which they In his and of life course that life course a way to to its Alwin on a number of essential it is up to to a step change by conceptual and building blocks to our understanding of the life course to the next