The State and the Life Course

(2022) - Karl Ulrich Mayer, Urs Schoepflin

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Tags:: #paper #LifeCourse #LifeDomain #SocialTheory
Cite Key:: [@mayerStateLifeCourse2022]

Abstract

Traditionally, the study of the life course has been divided into research on different age groups, different life phases, and different life domains such as the family cycle, fertility history, occupational careers and employment, the dynamics of income and consumption, migration, and normative patterns of aging. The emerging field of theory and research on the impact of the state on the structuring of the life course highlights overarching and integrative mechanisms for institutionalizing the life course. Therefore, the field constitutes a new analytical perspective rather than a specialized area of research. This review attempts to make the theoretical perspective explicit and to collect the various contributions from very scattered research reports. The major emphasis is macrosociological and theoretical. Examples are drawn from research on childhood, education, military service and wars, public employment, retirement, and old age. Particular attention is paid to the historical aspects of increasing state regulation. The review is based on US and Western European literature.

Notes

“This review attempts to make the theoretical perspective explicit and to collect the various contributions from very scattered research report” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 187)

“ohli 1986a). In this renaissance of studies in the life course, the work proceeded first from conventional traditions of theoretical and empirical research: age differentiation (Riley et al 1972, Modell et al 1976), social and occupational mobility and status attainment (Featherman 1983), family demography (Bongaarts et al 1987), life cycle consumption and savings, and biographical research (Bertaux & Kohli 1984), human development (Clausen 1986) and life-span psychology (Baltes 1987)” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 188)

“We suggest three reasons for the particular difficulties in building bridges between theory and research on the state and that on the life course. First, the meaning of the concept of "state" differs greatly in the European and in the North American traditions (Nettl 1968).” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 189)

“Second, the analytical and empirical connection between the state and the life course is difficult to define because the two perspectives are conceived on entirely different levels and within different time frames.” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 190)

“Third, among the major dimensions along which we conceptualize and measure the life course, there is no state dimension, and in the "states and activities" which define life events and transitions, the state rarely appears” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 190)

“(except, e.g., for military service). Thus, again, the impact of the state on human lives cannot directly be observed or quantitatively analyzed.” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 191)

“A second relationship between modern state formation and the individual life course must be seen within the context of societal differentiation (Mayer & Muller 1986:222, Mayer 1986). The traditional household was the primary locus of production and consumption, of reproduction and family life, of socialization and training, and of political authority (Weber 1968)” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 195)

“This differentiation is the precondition of the structure of the life course in terms of variable participation in segmented roles over the life time. This process may be termed the mapping of the institutional differentiation on the macrolevel of societies onto diachronically ordered segments of the life course (Luckmann 1975).” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 195)

“This is probably the most common way of thinking about the social structure of the life course. Smelser & Halpern (1978) developed this idea as the triangularization of life between school, family, and work. To the extent that participation in these various domains is organized in a strictly sequential manner across the life time, there is then a direct way of depicting corresponding social stages of life (Buchmann 1989).” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 195)

“the three major life stages are organized around gainful employment: the phase of education and training as preparation for work, the phase of active employment, and the postretirement years” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 196)

“One of the main ways in which the state affects the life course is that legal rules define universal and not case-wise applicability and entitlements. Universalism is at the core of legitimation for state activities. Whatever action the modem state is taking, it has to be governed by or based on general laws or administrative decrees, uniformly applicable for all citizens fulfilling certain criteria (von Ferber 1979).” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 199)

“Which subjective life plans and biographical reviews prevail under the conditions of differentiated life courses” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 201) This kind of goes to the core of the question 'Why do some people succeed'?

“The more marked changes and transitions in life should increase biographical awareness (Bertaux & Kohli 1984, Kohli 1986c” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 201)

“herever the state establishes rules, provides services, or offers monetary incentives, it is functionally rational for individuals to make use of such opportunities. This may lead to decisions concerning the individual organization of the life course which might be discrepant from actual individual needs or initial life designs.” (Mayer and Schoepflin, 2022, p. 202)