Generation can be seen as a crossroads where multiple socioeconomic influences intersect with individual life courses. Conceptualized as a process, performed dynamically and relationally, rather than a static category, generationing builds self-identities and concepts of how the social order is expected to work. In this article the authors ask how the multilayered processes of generationing, as experienced by those in mid-life, are affected by the shock of the 2008 economic crisis in the United States and in Canada, two countries very differently touched by the crisis. The US has suffered greatly with home foreclosures, bankruptcies, continuing high unemployment and spreading poverty. Canada, by contrast, has had negligible levels of home foreclosures, few bankruptcies and lower unemployment. The data are qualitative interviews conducted specifically with those in mid-life in working and middle classes in comparable medium-sized cities in the two countries, from fall 2008 through spring 2010. The authors' findings suggest that the shock of the economic crisis has deeply transformed the lives of those in the middle of generations and all those whose lives are linked to theirs, as well as the processes of generationing, particularly in the US, with implications for families, for societal cohesion and social order.

Processes of individualization have transformed families in late modernity. Although families may be more opportunistically created, they still face challenges of economic insecurity. In this article, we explore through indepth qualitative interviews how families by choice manage low income through the instrumental and expressive supports that they give and receive. Two central themes organize our analysis: "defining/doing family" and "generationing." Coupling the individualization thesis with a life course perspective, we find that families by choice, which can include both kin and nonkin relations, are created as a result of shared life events and daily needs. Families by choice are then sustained through intergenerational practices and relations. Importantly, we add to the growing body of literature that illustrates that both innovation and convention characterize contemporary family life for low-income people.

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -This paper aims to explore how neo-liberalism shapes income support policy and lone mothers' experiences in Canada and the USA. Design/methodology/approach -A critical comparative analysis is undertaken of how Canadian and US governments take up sociological concepts of risk, market citizenship, and individualization, whether explicitly or implicitly, in the design and administration of neo-liberal income support policies directed at lone mothers. Specifically, the contradictory life circumstances that Canadian and American lone mothers experience when they access income supports that are designed ostensibly to construct/reconstruct them as citizens capable of risk taking in their search for employment and selfsufficiency are compared. Findings -The paper finds that the realities for poor lone mothers are remarkably similar in the two countries and therefore argue that income support policies, particularly welfare-to-work initiatives, underpinned by neo-liberal tenets, can act in a counter-intuitive manner exposing lone mothers to greater rather than lesser economic and social insecurity/inequality, and constructing them as risk aversive and dependent.Research limitations/implications -The economic and social implications/contradictions of neoliberal restructuring of income support policies for lone mothers is revealed. Originality/value -This paper contributes to broader scholarship on the gendered dimensions of neo-liberal restructuring of welfare states in late modernity.

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