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C H A P T E R
A Life Course Perspective
Elizabeth D. Hutchison
Key Ideas
Case Study 1.1: David Sanchez’s Search for Connections
Case Study 1.2: Mahdi Mahdi’s Shared Journey
Case Study 1.3: The Suarez Family After September 11, 2001
A Definition of the Life Course Perspective Theoretical Roots of the Life Course Perspective Basic Concepts of the Life Course Perspective Cohorts Transitions Trajectories Life Events Turning Points
Major Themes of the Life Course Perspective Interplay of Human Lives and Historical Time
Timing of Lives Dimensions of Age Standardization in the Timing of Lives Linked or Interdependent Lives Links Between Family Members Links With the Wider World Human Agency in Making Choices Diversity in Life Course Trajectories Developmental Risk and Protection Strengths and Limitations of the Life Course Perspective Integration With a Multidimensional, Multitheoretical Approach Implications for Social Work Practice Key Terms Active Learning Web Resources
CHAPTER OUTLINE
2 DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR: THE CHANGING LIFE COURSE
OPENING QUESTIONS
- Why do social workers need to understand how people change from conception to death?
- What do social workers need to know about biological, psychological, social, and spiritual changes over the life course?
- Why do different people react to the same type of stressful life event in different ways?
KEY IDEAS
As you read this chapter, take note of these central ideas:
- The life course perspective attempts to understand the continuities as well as the twists and turns in the paths of individual lives.
- The life course perspective recognizes the influence of historical changes on human behavior.
- The life course perspective recognizes the importance of timing of lives not just in terms of chronological age, but also in terms of biological age, psychological age, social age, and spiri- tual age.
- The life course perspective emphasizes the ways in which humans are interdependent and gives special attention to the family as the primary arena for experiencing and interpreting the wider social world.
- The life course perspective sees humans as capable of making choices and constructing their own life journeys within systems of opportunities and constraints.
- The life course perspective emphasizes diversity in life journeys and the many sources of that diversity.
- The life course perspective recognizes the linkages between early life experiences and later expe- riences in adulthood.
C a s e S t u d y 1. 1
David Sanchez’s Search for Connections
David Sanchez has a Hispanic name, but he explains to his social worker, as he is readied for discharge from the hospital, that he is a member of the Navajo tribe. He has spent most of his life in New Mexico but came to Los Angeles to visit his son Marco, age 29, and his grandchildren. While he was visiting them, he was brought to the emergency room and then hospitalized for what has turned out to be a diabetic coma. He had been aware of losing weight during the past year, and felt ill at times, but thought
4 DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR: THE CHANGING LIFE COURSE
(Continued) It was through the Native American medicine retreats during David’s rehabilitation that he began to touch a softer reality. He began to believe in a higher order again. Although his father’s funeral had been painful, David experienced his grandmother’s funeral in a more spiritual way. It was as if she was there guiding him to enter his new role. David now realizes this was a turning point in his life. At his grandmother’s funeral, David’s great-uncle, a medicine man, asked him to come and live with him because he was getting too old to cut or carry wood. He also wanted to teach David age-old cures that would enable him to help others struggling with alcohol dependency, from Navajo as well as other tribes. Although David is still learning, his work with other alcoholics has been inspirational, and he finds he can make special connections to Vietnam veterans. Recently, David attended a conference where one of the First Nations speakers talked about the trans- generational trauma that families experienced because of the horrible beatings children encountered at the boarding schools. David is thankful that his son has broken the cycle of alcoholism and did not face the phys- ical abuse to which he was subjected. But he is sad that his son was depressed for many years as a teen and young man. Now, both he and Marco are working to heal their relationship. They draw on the meaning and strength of their cultural and spiritual rituals. David’s new role as spiritual and cultural teacher in his family has provided him with respect he never anticipated. Finally he is able to use his grandmother’s wise teach- ings and his healing apprenticeship with his great-uncle to help his immediate family and his tribe. A social worker working a situation like this—helping Mr. Sanchez with his discharge plans—must be aware that discharge planning involves one life transition that is a part of a larger life trajectory. —Maria E. Zuniga
C a s e S t u d y 1. 2
Mahdi Mahdi’s Shared Journey
Social workers involved in refugee resettlement work are eager to learn all they can about the refugee experience. Social workers in these scenarios are learning from their clients, but they will also find it helpful to talk with other resettlement workers who have made a successful adjustment after entering the United States as refugees. In this particular case, the social worker has been particularly grateful for what she has learned from conversa- tions with Mahdi Mahdi. Mahdi works as an immigration specialist at Catholic Social Services in Phoenix, pro- viding the kind of services that he could have used when he came to Phoenix as a refugee in 1992. Mahdi was born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1957. His father was a teacher, and his mother stayed at home to raise Mahdi and his four brothers and two sisters. Mahdi remembers the Baghdad of his childhood as a mix of old and new architecture and traditional and modern ways of life. Life in Baghdad was “very good” for him until about 1974, when political unrest and military control changed the quality of life. Mahdi and his wife were married after they graduated from Baghdad University with degrees in fine arts in 1982. Mahdi started teaching high school art when he graduated from college, but he was immediately drafted as an officer in the military to fight in the Iran-Iraq War. He was supposed to serve for only two years, but the war went on for eight years, and he was not able to leave the military until 1989. Mahdi recalls that many of his friends were killed in the war.
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By the end of the war, Mahdi and his wife had two daughters, and after the war Mahdi went back to teach- ing. He began to think, however, of moving to the United States, where two of his brothers had already immi- grated. He began saving money and was hoping to emigrate in November 1990. But on August 2, 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait, and war broke out once again. Mahdi was drafted again to fight in this war, but he refused to serve. According to the law in Iraq, anyone refusing the draft would be shot in front of his house. Mahdi had to go into hiding, and he remembers this as a very frightening time. After a few months, Mahdi took his wife, two children, and brother in a car and escaped from Baghdad. He approached the American army on the border of Iraq and Kuwait. The Americans took Mahdi and his fam- ily to a camp at Rafha in northern Saudi Arabia and left them there with the Saudi Arabian soldiers. Mahdi’s wife and children were very unhappy in the camp. The sun was hot, there was nothing green to be seen, and the wind storms were frightening. Mahdi also reports that the Saudi soldiers treated the Iraqi refugees like animals, beating them with sticks. Mahdi and his family were in the refugee camp for about a year and a half. He was very frightened because he had heard that some members of the Saudi Arabian army had an unofficial agreement with the Iraqi army to drop any refugees that they wanted at the Iraq border. One day he asked a man who came into the camp to help him get a letter to one of his brothers. Mahdi also wrote to the U.S. embassy. Mahdi’s brother peti- tioned to have him removed from the camp, and Mahdi and his family were taken to the U.S. embassy in Riyadh. Mahdi worked as a volunteer at the embassy for almost a month, and then he and his family flew to Switzerland, on to New York, and finally to Arizona. It was now September of 1992. Mahdi and his family lived with one of his brothers for about a month and a half, and then they moved into their own apartment. Mahdi worked as a cashier in a convenience store and took English classes at night. He wanted to be able to help his daughters with their schoolwork. Mahdi reports that although the culture was very different from what he and his family were accustomed to, it did not all come as a surprise. Iraq was the first Middle Eastern country to get television, and Mahdi knew a lot about the United States from the pro- grams he saw. After a year and a half at the convenience store, Mahdi decided to open his own moving company, USA Moving Company. He also went to school half time to study physics and math. He kept the moving company for two years, but it was hard. Some customers didn’t like his accent, and some of the people he hired didn’t like to work for an Iraqi. After he gave up the moving company, Mahdi taught seventh-grade fine arts in a public school for a cou- ple of years. He did not enjoy this job, because the students were not respectful to him. For the past several years, Mahdi has worked as an immigration specialist for Catholic Social Services. He enjoys this work very much and has assisted refugees and immigrants from many countries, including Somalia, Vietnam, and the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia. Mahdi has finished 20 credits toward a master’s degree in art education, and he thinks he might go back to teaching someday. Mahdi’s father died in 1982 from a heart attack; Mahdi thinks that worrying about his sons’ safety killed his father. Mahdi’s mother immigrated to Arizona in 1996 and lives about a mile from Mahdi and his family, next door to one of Mahdi’s brothers. (Three of Mahdi’s brothers are in Phoenix and one is in Canada. One sister is in Norway and the other is in Ukraine.) Mahdi’s mother loves being near the grandchildren, but she does not speak English and thus has a hard time meeting new people. In 1994, Mahdi and his wife had a third daughter. About 11 months ago, Mahdi’s mother- and father-in-law immigrated to the United States and came to live with Mahdi and his family. His wife now stays home to take care of them. Mahdi is sensitive to how hard it is for them to move to a new culture at their age.
(Continued)
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C a s e S t u d y 1. 3
The Suarez Family After September 11, 2001
Maria is a busy, active 11-year-old whose life was changed by the events of September 11, 2001. Her mother, Emma Suarez, worked at the World Trade Center and did not survive the attack. Emma was born in Puerto Rico and came to the mainland to live in the South Bronx when she was 5, along with her parents, a younger brother, two sisters, and an older brother. Emma’s father, Carlos, worked hard to make a living for his family, sometimes working as many as three jobs at once. After the children were all in school, Emma’s mother, Rosa, began to work as a domestic worker in the homes of a few wealthy families in Manhattan. Emma was a strong student from her first days in public school and was often at the top of her class. Her younger brother, Juan, and the sister closest to her in age, Carmen, also were good students, but they were never the star pupils that Emma was. The elder brother, Jesus, and sister, Aida, struggled in school from the time they came to the South Bronx, and both dropped out before they finished high school. Jesus has returned to Puerto Rico to live on the farm with his grandparents. During her summer vacations from high school, Emma often cared for the children of some of the families for whom her mother worked. One employer was particularly impressed with Emma’s quickness and pleasant temperament and took a special interest in her. She encouraged Emma to apply to colleges during her senior year in high school. Emma was accepted at City College and was planning to begin as a full-time student after high school graduation. A month before Emma was to start school, however, her father had a stroke and was unable to return to work. Rosa and Aida rearranged their work schedules so that they could share the care of Carlos. Carmen had a husband and two young children of her own. Emma realized that she was now needed as an income earner. She took a position doing data entry in an office in the World Trade Center and took evening courses on a part-time basis. She was studying to be a teacher, because she loved learning and wanted to pass on that love to other students. And then Emma found herself pregnant. She knew that Alejandro Padilla, a young man in one of her classes at school, was the father. Alejandro said that he was not ready to marry, however. Emma returned to work a month after Maria was born, but she did not return to school. At first, Rosa and Aida were not happy that Emma was pregnant with no plans to marry, but once Maria was born, they fell hopelessly in love with her. They were happy to share the care of Maria, along with Carlos, while Emma worked. Emma cared for Maria and Carlos in the evenings so that Rosa and Aida could work. Maria was, indeed, an engaging baby, and she was thriving with the adoration of Rosa, Carlos, Aida, Juan, and Emma. Emma missed school, but she held on to her dreams to be a teacher someday. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Emma left early for work at her job on the 84th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center, because she was nearing a deadline on a big project. Aida was bathing Carlos when Carmen called about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. Aida called Emma’s number, but did not get through to her.
(Continued)
A DEFINITION OF THE LIFE COURSE PERSPECTIVE
One of the things that the stories of David Sanchez, Mahdi Mahdi, and the Suarez family have in common is that they unfolded over time, across multiple generations. We all have stories that unfold as we progress through life. A useful way to understand this relationship between time and human behavior is the life course perspective, which looks at how chronological age, relationships, common life transitions, and social change shape people’s lives from birth to death. Of course, time is only one dimension of human behavior; characteristics of the person and the environment in which the person lives also play a part (see Exhibit 1.1). But it is common and sensible to try to understand a per- son by looking at the way that person has developed throughout different periods of life. The purpose of this book and its companion volume Dimensions of Human Behavior: Person and Environment is to provide ways for you to think about the nature and complexities of the people and situations that are at the center of social work practice. To begin to do that, we must first clarify the purpose of social work and the approach it takes to individual and collective human behavior. This is laid out in the 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards of the Council on Social Work Education:
The purpose of the social work profession is to promote human and community well-being. Guided by a per- son and environment construct, a global perspective, respect for human diversity, and knowledge based on sci- entific inquiry, social work’s purpose is actualized through its quest for social and economic justice, the prevention of conditions that limit human rights, the elimination of poverty, and the enhancement of the qual- ity of life for all persons. (Council on Social Work Education, 2008, p. 1)
Section 2.1.7 of the policy lays out the guidelines for the human behavior and the social environment curriculum, which includes knowledge about human behavior across the life course. That is the specific purpose of this book.
8 DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR: THE CHANGING LIFE COURSE
(Continued) The next few days, even weeks, are a blur to the Suarez family. Juan, Carmen, and Aida took turns going to the Family Assistance Center, but there was no news about Emma. At one point, because Juan was wor- ried about Rosa, he brought her to the Red Cross Disaster Counseling Center where they met with a social worker who was specially trained for working in disaster situations. Rosa seemed to be near collapse. Juan, Rosa, and Aida all missed a lot of work for a number of weeks, and the cash flow sometimes became problematic. They were blessed with the generosity of their Catholic parish, employers, neighbors, and a large extended family; however, financial worries are not their greatest concerns at the moment. They are relieved that Maria will have access to money for a college education, because children of parents who died in the World Trade Center catastrophe are eligible to receive death benefits until age 21, or 23 if they are full-time students. They continue to miss Emma terribly and struggle to understand the horrific thing that happened to her, but the pain is not as great as it once was. They all still have nightmares about planes hitting tall build- ings, however. Maria is lucky to have such a close loving family. She is sorry that she doesn’t have clear memories of her mother and likes to look at photos of the beautiful young woman that she understands to be her mother. She feels sad when she hears people talk about the events of September 11, 2001, which happens in the South Bronx a lot. A social worker doing disaster relief must be aware of the large impact that disasters have on the multi- generational family, both in the present and for years to come.
You might also try to understand a person in terms of how that person’s life has been synchronized with family members’ lives across time. David Sanchez has begun to have a clearer understanding of his linkages to his great- uncle, father, son, and grandchildren. Mahdi Mahdi tells his story in terms of family connections, and Maria’s story is thoroughly entwined with that of her multigenerational family. Finally, you might view the life course in terms of how culture and social institutions shape the pattern of individ- ual lives. David Sanchez’s life course was shaped by cultural and institutional preferences for placing Native American children in boarding schools during middle childhood and adolescence and for recommending the military for youth and young adults. Mahdi Mahdi’s life course was also heavily influenced by cultural expectations about soldiering.Maria Suarez’s life course was changed forever by culture-related geopolitical conflict.
THEORETICAL ROOTS OF THE LIFE COURSE PERSPECTIVE
The life course perspective (LCP) is a theoretical model that has been emerging over the last 45 years, across several disciplines. Sociologists, anthropologists, social historians, demographers, and psychologists—working indepen- dently and, more recently, collaboratively—have all helped to give it shape. Glen Elder Jr., a sociologist, was one of the early authors to write about a life course perspective, and he continues to be one of the driving forces behind its development. In the early 1960s, he began to analyze data from three pioneering longi- tudinal studies of children that had been undertaken by the University of California, Berkeley. As he examined several decades of data, he was struck with the enormous impact of the Great Depression of the 1930s on individual and family pathways (Elder, 1974). He began to call for developmental theory and research that looked at the influence of historical forces on family, education, and work roles.
10 DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR: THE CHANGING LIFE COURSE
Photo 1.1 The life course perspective emphasizes ways in which humans are interdependent and gives special emphasis to the family as the primary arena for experiencing the world.
At about the same time, social history emerged as a serious field. Social historians were particularly interested in retrieving the experiences of ordinary people, from their own vantage point, rather than telling the historical story from the vantage point of wealthy and powerful persons. Tamara Hareven (1978, 1982b, 1996, 2000) has played a key role in developing the subdiscipline of the history of the family. She is particularly interested in how families change and adapt under changing historical conditions and how individuals and families synchronize their lives to accom- modate to changing social conditions. As will become clearer later in the chapter, the life course perspective also draws on traditional theories of develop- mental psychology, which look at the events that typically occur in people’s lives during different stages. The life course perspective differs from these psychological theories in one very important way, however. Developmental psychology looks for universal, predictable events and pathways, but the life course perspective calls attention to how historical time, social location, and culture affect the individual experience of each life stage. The life course perspective is still relatively young, but its popularity is growing. In recent years, it has begun to be used to understand the pathways of families (Huinink & Feldhaus, 2009; MacMillan & Copher, 2005), organizations (King, 2009), and social movements (Della Porta & Diani, 2006). I suggest that it has potential for understanding pat- terns of stability and change in all types of social systems. Gerontologists increasingly use the perspective to under- stand how old age is shaped by events experienced earlier in life (Browne, Mokuau, & Braun, 2009; Ferraro & Shippee, 2009). The life course perspective has become a major theoretical framework in criminology (Chen, 2009; Haynie, Petts, Maimon, & Piquero, 2009) and the leading perspective driving longitudinal study of health behaviors and out- comes (Evans, Crogan, Belyea, & Coon, 2009; Osler, 2006). It has also been proposed as a useful perspective for under- standing patterns of lifetime drug use (Hser, Longshore, & Anglin, 2007).
BASIC CONCEPTS OF THE LIFE COURSE PERSPECTIVE
Scholars who write from a life course perspective and social workers who apply the life course perspective in their work rely on a handful of staple concepts: cohorts, transitions, trajectories, life events, and turning points (see Exhibit 1.2 for concise definitions). As you read about each concept, imagine how it applies to the lives of David Sanchez, Mahdi Mahdi, and Maria Suarez as well as to your own life.
Cohorts
With their attention to the historical context of developmental pathways, life course scholars have found the con- cept of cohort to be very useful. In the life course perspective, a cohort is a group of persons who were born during the same time period and who experience particular social changes within a given culture in the same sequence and at the same age (Alwin & McCammon, 2003; Bjorklund & Bee, 2008; D. Newman, 2008; Settersten, 2003a). Generation is another term used to convey a similar meaning. Generation is usually used to refer to a period of about 20 years, but a cohort may be shorter than that, and life course scholars often make a distinction between the two terms, suggest- ing that a birth cohort becomes a generation only when it develops some shared sense of its social history and a shared identity (see Alwin, McCammon, & Hofer, 2006). Cohorts differ in size, and these differences affect opportunities for education, work, and family life. For example, the baby boom that followed World War II (1946 to 1964) in the United States produced a large cohort.When this large cohort entered the labor force, surplus labor drove wages down and unemployment up (Pearlin & Skaff, 1996; Uhlenberg, 1996). Similarly, the large “baby boom echo” cohort, sometimes called Generation Y or the Millennium Generation (born 1980 to late 1990s),began competing for slots in prestigious universities at the beginning of the 21st century (Argetsinger, 2001).
Chapter 1 A Life Course Perspective^11
as China, India, Taiwan, and South Korea, female abortion and female infanticide have led to sex ratios of 110 or more at birth (Clarke & Craven, 2005). As you can see in Exhibit 1.3, sex ratios decline across adulthood because males die at higher rates at every age.Again, there are exceptions to this trend in impoverished countries with strong male pref- erence, where female children may be abandoned, neglected, given less food, or given up for foreign adoption (D. Newman, 2008). Sex ratios can be further unbalanced by war (which leads to greater male mortality) or high rates of either male or female out-migration or in-migration. For some time, sex ratios at birth have been lower for African Americans than for Whites in the United States, meaning that fewer African American boy babies are born per 100 girl babies than is the case in the White population.
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Age Group
Over 65
15–
Under 15
Less developed countries
Developed countries
Thousands of People in Age Group
25,00050,
0
50,000100,000150,000200,000250,000300,00050,00025,
0
300,000250,000200,000150,000100,00050, Thouands of People in Age Group
2005 2025
Female MaleFemale Male
Exhibit 1.3 Population Pyramids in Less Developed and Developed Countries
SOURCE: D. Newman, 2008. Reprinted with permission.
However, recent research shows some narrowing in this disparity, with the sex ratio at birth declining among Whites and increasing slightly for African Americans. The racial disparity widens across the life course, however, with a 2005 estimated sex ratio of 86.5 men to 100 women among African American adults over age 18 compared with 96.4 men to 100 women among White adults (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2008a).
Transitions
A life course perspective is stagelike because it proposes that each person experiences a number of transitions, or changes in roles and statuses that represent a distinct departure from prior roles and statuses (Elder & Kirkpatrick Johnson, 2003; Hagestad, 2003; Hser et al., 2007). Life is full of such transitions: starting school, entering puberty, leav- ing school, getting a first job, leaving home, retiring, and so on. Leaving his grandmother’s home for boarding school and enrolling in the military were important transitions for David Sanchez. Rusel Mahdi is excited about the transition from high school to college. Many transitions relate to family life: marriages, births, divorces, remarriages, deaths (Carter & McGoldrick, 2005a; Hagestad, 2003). Each transition changes family statuses and roles and generally is accompanied by family members’ exits and entrances. We can see the dramatic effects of birth and death on the Suarez family as Maria entered and Emma exited the family circle. Nursing scholars have recently used the life course perspective, the con- cept of transitions in particular, to understand role changes that occur in family caregiving of older adults (Evans et al., 2009). Transitions in collectivities other than the family, such as small groups, communities, and formal organizations, also involve exits and entrances of members as well as changes in statuses and roles. In college, for example, students
14 DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR: THE CHANGING LIFE COURSE
Photo 1.2 The life course is full of transitions in roles and statuses; graduation from college or university is an important life transition that opens opportunities for future statuses and roles.
16 DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR: THE CHANGING LIFE COURSE
Major change in sleeping habits (a lot more or a lot less sleep, or change in part of day when asleep)
- Death of a spouse Life Event Stress Rating
- Divorce
- Marital separation from mate
- Detention in jail or other institutions
- Death of a close family member
- Major personal injury or illness
- Marriage
- Being fired at work
- Marital reconciliation with mate
- Retirement from work
- Major change in the health or behavior of a family member
- Pregnancy
- Sexual difficulties
- Gaining a new family member (e.g., through birth, adoption, elder moving in)
- Major business readjustment (e.g., merger, reorganization, bankruptcy)
- Major change in financial state (a lot worse off or a lot better off than usual)
- Death of a close friend
- Changing to a different line of work
- Major change in the number of arguments with spouse (more or less)
- Taking out a mortgage or loan for a major purchase
- Foreclosure on a mortgage or loan
- Major change in responsibilities at work (e.g., promotion, demotion, lateral transfer)
- Son or daughter leaving home
- Trouble with in-laws
- Outstanding personal achievement
- Wife beginning or ceasing work outside the home
- Taking out a mortgage or loan for a lesser purchase (e.g., for a car, TV, freezer)
Inventories like the Schedule of Recent Events can remind us of some of the life events that affect human behavior and life course trajectories, but they also have limitations:
Life events inventories are not finely tuned. One suggestion is to classify life events along several dimensions: “major versus minor, anticipated versus unanticipated, controllable versus uncontrollable, typical versus atyp- ical, desirable versus undesirable, acute versus chronic. (Settersten & Mayer, 1997, p. 246)
Most existing inventories are biased toward undesirable, rather than desirable, events. Not all life events prompt harmful life changes. Indeed, researchers have begun to distinguish between positive and negative life events and to measure their different impacts on human behavior. For example, one research team explored the impact of recalled positive and negative life events on the psychological well-being of adolescents and found that the impact of recalled life events varies by personality type (Garcia & Siddiqui, 2009). Another research team investigated how
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Life Event Stress Rating Major change in number of family get-togethers (e.g., a lot more or a lot less than usual) 24
Major change in eating habits (a lot less food intake or very different meal hours or sur- roundings)
23
Vacation 20
Christmas 20 Minor violations of the law (e.g., traffic tickets, jaywalking, disturbing the peace) 20
Beginning or ceasing formal schooling 19 Major change in living conditions (e.g., building a new home, remodeling, deterioration of home or neighborhood)
19
Revision of personal habits (e.g., dress, manners, associations) 18 Trouble with the boss 17
Major change in working hours or conditions 16 Change in residence 15
Major change in usual type and/or amount of recreation 13 Major change in church activities (e.g., a lot more or a lot less than usual) 12
Major change in social activities (e.g., clubs, dancing, movies, visiting) 11 Change to a new school 5
Exhibit 1.5 Life Change Events From the Holmes and Rahe Schedule of Recent Events
SOURCE: Holmes, 1978, p. 747. Reprinted with permission.
Transitions and life events do not always produce the major change that would constitute a turning point.However, either a transition or life event may be perceived as a turning point as time passes. Longitudinal research indicates that three types of life events can serve as turning points (Rutter, 1996):
- Life events that either close or open opportunities
- Life events that make a lasting change on the person’s environment
- Life events that change a person’s self-concept, beliefs, or expectations
Some events, such as migration to a new country, are momentous because they qualify as all three types of events (Jasso, 2003). Migration, whether voluntary or involuntary, certainly makes a lasting change on the environment in which the person lives; it may also close and open opportunities and cause a change in self-concept and beliefs. Certainly, that seems to be the case with Mahdi Mahdi. Keep in mind, however, that individuals make subjective assessments of life events. The same type of life event may be a turning point for one individual, family, or other col- lectivity, but not for another. For example, one research team found that an HIV diagnosis was a turning point for 37% of their sample of HIV-positive people but was not reported as a turning point for 63% of the sample (Kremer,Ironson, & Kaplan,2009).Less dramatic transitions may also become turning points,depending on the individual’s assessment of their importance.An Australian study of women found a change in the nature of turning points in midlife—before midlife, turning points were likely to be related to role transitions; but after midlife, they were more likely to be related to personal growth (Leonard, 2006). A transition can become a turning point under five conditions (Hareven, 2000):
- When the transition occurs simultaneously with a crisis or is followed by a crisis
- When the transition involves family conflict over the needs and wants of individuals and the greater good of the family unit
- When the transition is “off-time,” meaning that it does not occur at the typical stage in life
- When the transition is followed by unforeseen negative consequences
- When the transition requires exceptional social adjustments
One research team interviewed older adults between the ages of 60 and 87 about perceived turning points in their lives and found that the most frequently reported turning points involved health and family. The perceived turning points occurred across the entire life course, but there was some clustering at midlife (ages 45–64), a period in which 32.2% of the reported turning points occurred (Cappeliez et al., 2008). Gender differences have been found in reported turning points in samples of young adults as well as samples of older adults, with women reporting more turning points in the family domain and men reporting more turning points in the work domain (Cappeliez et al.; Rönkä et al., 2003). It is not clear whether this gender difference will be manifested in future cohorts if women’s work trajectories continue to become more similar to men’s. Researchers have begun to study the turning points that lead women to leave abusive relationships (Khaw & Hardesty, 2007) and the turning points in the caregiving careers of Mexican American women who care for older family members (Evans et al., 2009). This later research identifies a “point of reckoning” turning point when the caregiver recognizes the need for extensive caregiving and reorganizes her life to accept responsibility for providing care. Loss of a parent is not always a turning point, but when such a loss occurs off-time, as it did with David Sanchez and Maria Suarez, it is often a turning point. Emma Suarez may not have thought of her decision to take a job in the World Trade Center as a turning point, because she could not foresee the events of September 11, 2001.
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MAJOR THEMES OF THE LIFE COURSE PERSPECTIVE
Over a decade ago, Glen Elder Jr. (1994) identified four dominant, and interrelated, themes in the life course approach: interplay of human lives and historical time, timing of lives, linked or interdependent lives, and human agency in making choices. The meaning of these themes is discussed below, along with the meaning of two other related themes that Elder (1998) and Michael Shanahan (2000) have more recently identified as important: diversity in life course trajectories and developmental risk and protection. The meaning of these themes is summarized in Exhibit 1.6.
Interplay of Human Lives and Historical Time
As sociologists and social historians began to study individual and family life trajectories, they noted that persons born in different years face different historical worlds, with different options and constraints—especially in rapidly changing societies,such as the United States at the beginning of the 21st century.They suggested that historical time may produce cohort effects when distinctive formative experiences are shared at the same point in the life course and have a lasting impact on a birth cohort (Alwin & McCammon, 2003). The same historical events may affect different cohorts in different ways.For example, Elder’s (1974) research on children and the Great Depression found that the life course trajectories of the cohort that were young children at the time of the economic downturn were more seriously affected by family hardship than the cohort that were in middle childhood and late adolescence at the time. Analysis of large data sets by a number of researchers provides forceful evidence that changes in other social insti- tutions impinge on family and individual life course trajectories (Vikat,Speder,Beets,Billari,& Buhler,2007).Recently, researchers have examined the impact of globalization,declining labor market opportunities,and rising housing costs on young adult transitions (see K. Newman, 2008; Scherger, 2009). These researchers are finding that transitions asso- ciated with young adulthood (leaving the parental home, marriage, first parenthood) are occurring later for the cur- rent cohort of young adults than for their parents in many countries,particularly in countries with weak welfare states. No doubt, researchers will be studying the impact of the global economic recession that began in late 2007 on life course trajectories of different cohorts. Other aspects of the current historical era that will most likely generate life
Most life course pathways include multiple turning points, some that send life trajectories off track and others that bring life trajectories back on track. David Sanchez’s Vietnam experience seems to have gotten him off track, and his grandmother’s death seems to have gotten him back on track. In fact, we could say that the intent of many social work interventions is to get life course trajectories back on track. We do this when we plan interventions to precipitate a turning point toward recovery for a client with an addiction. Or, we may plan an intervention to help a deteriorating community reclaim its lost sense of community and spirit of pride. It is interesting to note that many social service organizations have taken “Turning Point” for their name.
20 DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR: THE CHANGING LIFE COURSE
Critical Thinking Questions 1.
Consider the life course story of either David Sanchez or Mahdi Mahdi. Based on the information you have, what do you think would be the chapter titles if Mr. Sanchez or Mr. Mahdi wrote a book about his life? How about a book about your own life to date: what would be the chapter titles of that book? Which show up more in the chapter titles, life transitions (changes in roles in statuses) or life events (significant happenings)?
