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Summary Population, family and the life course
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Comprehensive summary of all lessons with occasional Dutch clarification.
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Population, Family and the life course1. The life course paradigm
• Core element of the life course paradigm
• The life course cube
• Social inequality and the life course
2. Demography, economics and social security (Karel Neels)
• Causal relationships between demography, economics and social security
• Second Demographic Transition
• Theories of family formation
• Population structures: ageing, sub replacement fertility, household structures
• Social expenditure and policy options
3. Transition to adulthood
• Standardisation and de-standardisation of the life course
• Transition to adulthood
• Marriage and cohabitation
4. Population policy (Leen Marynissen)
• Population policy and politics
• Population policy in Europe and Belgium
• Re-evaluating policy effects
• Population heterogeneity and the Matthew effect in the life course
5. Partnership dissolution
• Definitions and trends
• Causes and consequences of divorce
• Repartnering after partnership dissolution
6. Migration (Julie)
• Migration in the context of ageing
• Migration history and internal dynamics of migration processes
• School trajectories and labour market position
• Transition to parenthood and work-life balance
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,1. The life course paradigm
The way we look at social reality
⁃ Defining the life course
⁃ Historical development of the LC paradigm
⁃ Principles of the paradigm (is linked to the historical development)
⁃ Epidemiological model of the LC
⁃ Sociological model of the LC
⁃ The “LC Cube” theory
⁃ Understanding time
⁃ Life course methods
1.1 Defining the life course
Definition
The course of life is conceived as a succession of positions that an individual occupies over
time. An important distinction is that between (life) events and position.
De levensloop wordt opgevat als een opeenvolging van posities die een individu in de
loop van de tijd inneemt. Een belangrijk onderscheid is dat tussen
(levens)gebeurtenissen en positie.
3 major ingredients in definition: term of position, time and event.
I am in the position of student now.
Events mark the transition between two positions, while a position is enclosed between two
events.
Gebeurtenissen dienen als overgang tussen 2 posities en dienen als momenten van
verandering, terwijl een positie is ingesloten tussen 2 gebeurtenissen dus een positie
wordt bepaald door de gebeurtenissen die eraan voorafgaan en volgen.
Je kan van single zijn overgaan naar een relatie en samenwonen, wat de
positie van partnerschap markeert. Wanneer je kinderen krijgt komt men in de
positie van ouder.
Life course paradigm
Conceptual framework – theoretical orientation
• Multidisciplinary (psychology, demography, sociology, economics, epidemiology)
• Different (sociological, epidemiological) theoretical and methodological perspectives
Omvat verschillende theoretische en methodologische perspectieven
waaronder sociologische en epidemiologische (gezondheidsgerelateerd)
Life course as a concept
Life course as a research object= dependent variable (gevolg)
Impact of historical, demographic, cultural, economic, political, … trends and events on
someone’s life course
2
, Sociology looks at life courses not as expression of an unfolding personality
but as regularities “produced” by institutions and structural opportunities
Sociologie bekijkt levenslopen niet als uitdrukking van een zich
ontvouwende persoonlijkheid maar als regelmatigheden
“geproduceerd” door instituties en structuren.
How does policy affect your life course: policy can influence when you will
have a child
Many life courses
Not one but many life courses
▪ Family
▪ Labour
▪ Education
▪ Income (income positions as a life course)
1.2 Historical development of the LC paradigm
1.2.1 The North-American LC perspective
To look at people’s life’s in an extends race of time.
Before the life course paradigm
• SNAPSHOT RESEARCH: looking at the impact of social structure on individual life
= cross-sectional research design
• MOVIE-LIKE RESEARCH: looking at the unfolding (evolutie) of individuals lives
= qualitative studies (look at all circumstances: how deep people construct their life’s)
The family was considered to be the most important link between the process of social
change and the personal course of life (how people experience it individually)
The patriarch: ELDER
Children of the Great Depression (1974)
(where he looked at people that were born at different times: he compared 3
different cohort’s)
• 1930s economic depression in the US
• Impact on later life, depending on birth cohort and social class
• 3 cohorts
• Boston: early 20th century (young adults 20-30 years old’s during GD)
• Oakland: 1920s (teenagers)
• Berkeley: 1928-1929 (little children, 1-2 years)
3
, X-as: historical time
Groene lijn is waar we geïnteresseerd in zijn, wanneer de GD was.
People were in different stages of their childhood: data collection was in de 70s so he looks
back in the life’s of people 30 years ago. He asks the respondents how their life was after the
Great Depression
Children of the Great Depression (1974) – Boston cohort
• FINDING: link between economic context and life course of the child through
psychological and economic adjustments (aanpassingen)
• Division of labor
▪ The loss of income by the head of the household was absorbed
(opgevangen) by increased paid work by mothers and sons (the
balance shifted a bit: loss of income: they try to absolve it to find paid-
work)
▪ Increasing the labor-intensive household activities by daughters
▪ The responsibility for the family shifted from the (male) breadwinner
to the mother and the other children
• Change in family relationships
▪ The relative influence of the mother increased
▪ Control by the parents decreased and the father role was less
appreciated
▪ CONSEQUENCE: status loss and tensions within the family
• Greater impact for poorer, working-class families & girls
• Daughters of the most deprived (kansarme) families became more focused on
performance household chores, raising children and the family in general
• The reduced supervision by parents, combined with the increase in household
responsibilities, resulted in a lower level of education for both the boys and
the girls from the more deprived families
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