New Directions in Life Course Research

(2009) - Karl Ulrich Mayer

Journal: Annual Review of Sociology
Link:: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134619
DOI:: 10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134619
Links::
Tags:: #paper #LifeCourse #LifeDomain #SocialTheory
Cite Key:: [@mayerNewDirectionsLife2009]

Abstract

Life courses are studied in sociology and neighboring fields as develop mental processes, as culturally and normatively constructed life stages and age roles, as biographical meanings, as aging processes, as outcomes of institutional regulation and policies, as demographic accounts, or as mere empirical connectivity across the life course. This review has two aims. One is to report on trends in life course research by focusing on empirical studies published since the year 2000. The other is to assess the overall development of the field. Major advances can be observed in four areas: national individual-level longitudinal databases, the impact of institutional contexts on life courses, life courses under conditions of societal ruptures, and health across the life course. In four other areas, advancements have been less pronounced: internal dynamics and causal linkages across life, the interaction of development and socially con structed life courses, theory development, and new methods. Overall, life course sociology still has far to go to reach its full potential.

Notes

“The following criteria represent an emerging consensus (Elder et al. 2003, Settersten 2003b, Mayer 2004):” (Mayer, 2009, p. 414)

“Changes in human lives (as changes in personal characteristics and transitions between states) are considered over a long stretch of lifetime, such as from child hood to old age, and not just as partic ular episodes, such as transition to mar riage or first birth, or narrow life phases. There is also the strong assumption that prior life history has strong impacts on later life outcomes.” (Mayer, 2009, p. 414)

“hanges in human lives are investigated across a larger series of cohorts rather than by a few cohorts or synthetic co horts based on cross-sectional data (life time and historical time).” (Mayer, 2009, p. 414)

“Changes in human lives are studied across life domains, such as work and family, often implying interdisciplinary approaches.” (Mayer, 2009, p. 414)

“Life course development is analyzed as the outcome of personal characteristics and individual action as well as of cul tural frames and institutional and struc tural conditions (relating micro, meso, and macro levels of analysis, structure, and agency).” (Mayer, 2009, p. 414)

“uman lives are viewed in the context of collective contexts (couples, families, cohorts).” (Mayer, 2009, p. 414)

“ife course/cohort analysis is essential for social policies with a paradigm shift from curative to preventive intervention.” (Mayer, 2009, p. 414)

“& Znaniecki 1918-1920). In the same period, Karl Mannheim (1928,1952) proposed another highly synthetic concept?the generation? that fused quite general ideas about social metabolism (i.e., social change via the suc cession of cohorts) with ideas about histor ical styles and historically specific collective actors” (Mayer, 2009, p. 415)

“Although the thesis of an increasing plural ization of family forms has found partial sup port (Br?ckner & Mayer 2005, Wu & Li 2005, Elzinga & Liefbroer 2007), there remains con flicting evidence and much controversy in re gard to trends in the stability of working lives. Grunow & Mayer (2007) and Korpi & T?hlin (2006) are impressed more by the surprising sta bility of firm tenure and occupation, whereas Blossfeld & Mills (2006) and Struck (2006) see some evidence for decreasing stability o” (Mayer, 2009, p. 418)

“ssumed to be due to globalizing markets. Many of these studies suffer from a lack of clarity over what is being counted as destandardization and deinstitutionalization and/or from a lack of a theoretical model that would allow the attribu tion of cause” (Mayer, 2009, p. 419)

“The hallmark of the life course tradition has been that among its primary topics were changes of life course patterns across histori cal time and the impact of historical contexts on life course outcomes (period effect” (Mayer, 2009, p. 419)

“Continuous event histo ries show a much higher degree of turbu lence than do either cross-section comparisons or panel studies. Former qualifications, skills, gender, and age at the time of the transfor mation play the strongest role in trajectories after system ruptur” (Mayer, 2009, p. 420)

“n the analytic side, some scholars have argued that the genetic, physical, and psycho logical constraints on how people live out their lives and the interindividual variations result ing from these constraints are not just non negligible but rather overwhelming compared with the determinants resulting from sociocul tural differences (Rutter 1997, Shanahan et al. 2003). I” (Mayer, 2009, p. 420)

“s would recede in impor tance (Mayer 2003). In stark contrast, however, Heckhausen (1999) (see also Schmeiser 2006) argues that psychological modes of regulation of the life course should become more impor tant than structural or institutional constraints” (Mayer, 2009, p. 421)

“Although the historical argument seems plausible at first, one may doubt its applicability to modern life courses as far as the role of nor mative orientations is concerned. According to Meyer (1986), strong internal norms that guide life courses were appropriate and widespread in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, but they would be highly dysfunctional in present day societies, where very flexible situational adaptation is require” (Mayer, 2009, p. 421)

“life course sociology lacks a coher ent body of theory” (Mayer, 2009, p. 423)

“Indeed, because there is not just one mech anism underlying the social structuring of human lives, but rather manifold mechanisms operating on the individual, meso, and macro levels, one might contend that a simple, unified sociological theory of the life course is not pos sible at all.” (Mayer, 2009, p. 423)

“I claim that the lack of explanatory theory(ies) accounts for much of the mosdy descriptive or illustrative rather than confirmative nature of life course research.” (Mayer, 2009, p. 423)

“second area of theory development also tries to go beyond the language of life courses as sequences of transition and states and instead focuses on the concept of risk (O'Rand 2003)” (Mayer, 2009, p. 424)

“uinink and others have tried to incorporate rational choice theory into a life course frame work but have not progressed much beyond single event transitions (Feldhaus & Huinink 2009). Hakim (1999) has stressed the role of life scripts for explaining family formation be havior as an alternative for the adaptation of values to changing circumst” (Mayer, 2009, p. 424)

“Blossfeld & Rohwer (1997) elaborated the argument for life course analysis as an instrument for spec ifying and testing causal hypotheses” (Mayer, 2009, p. 425)

“Biliari & Phillipov (2004) applied Lillard's (1993) si multaneous equations hazards models studying the association of motherhood and educational participation to better account for unobserved heterogeneit” (Mayer, 2009, p. 425)

“he main objections to optimal matching were the lack of validation methods, deficits in handling missing and censored data, and an inability to deal with complex interdependen cies in the data (Aisenbrey & Fasang 2007)” (Mayer, 2009, p. 425)

“Clustering trajectories by latent class models was another attempt to arrive at overall typolo gies of life courses” (Mayer, 2009, p. 425)

“Somewhere in between the analytic and holistic traditions is the recent surge in growth curve models that on the one hand model tra jectories, but on the other hand also fully incor porate causal factors. Shuey & Willson (2008) have applied latent growth models to racial dis parities in health trajectories” (Mayer, 2009, p. 425)