Life Course: Innovations and Challenges for Social Research

Heinz, Walter R.; Krüger, Helga

doi:10.1177/0011392101049002004

Cited by 186 publications

(121 citation statements)

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“…The manner in which participants themselves adapted activities, objects and routines to meet their ongoing needs was often illustrative of 'the biographical foundation of agency' (Heinz & Kruger, 2001). It was not uncommon for older people to draw upon past experiences of more austere times to change the way they used the home or its contents, demonstrating the ability to improvise in order to support their independence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Healthy ageing and home: The perspectives of very old people in five European countries

Sixsmith

Fänge

et al. 2014

Social Science & Medicine

185

160

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This paper reports on in-depth research, using a grounded theory approach, to examine the ways in which very old people perceive healthy ageing in the context of living alone at home within urban settings in five European countries. This qualitative study was part of a cross-national project entitled ENABLE-AGE which examined the relationship between home and healthy ageing. Interviews explored the notion of healthy ageing, the meaning and importance of home, conceptualisations of independence and autonomy and links between healthy ageing and home. Data analysis identified five ways in which older people constructed healthy ageing: home and keeping active; elsevier_SSM_9267 managing lifestyles, health and illness; balancing social life; and balancing material and financial circumstances. Older people reflected on their everyday lives at home in terms of being engaged in purposeful, meaningful action and evaluated healthy ageing in relation to the symbolic and practical affordances of the home, contextualised within constructions of their national context. The research suggests that older people perceive healthy ageing as an active achievement, created through individual, personal effort and supported through social ties despite the health, financial and social decline associated with growing older. The physicality and spatiality of home provided the context for establishing and evaluating the notion of healthy ageing, whilst the experienced relationship between home, life history and identity created a meaningful space within which healthy ageing was negotiated.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Healthy ageing and home: The perspectives of very old people in five European countries

Sixsmith

Fänge

et al. 2014

Social Science & Medicine

185

160

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As a result, many individuals constantly work on a project of the self in order to make the best possible life plans (Beck 1992;Giddens 1991;Sennett 1998). The trend towards de-standardization puts more emphasis on individual resourcefulness and responsibility in shaping one's life course (Heinz and Krüger 2001). The question that rises, is to what extent choices made within the life course can be regarded as conscious strategies (Kuijsten 1999).…”

Section: Previous Research and Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Common interests may lead one or both partners to expect or feel obligated to give a lower priority to their individual career interests in order to invest in the 'collective project called family' (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995;Giddens 1991;Hardill 2002). In general, women experience less continuity in the life domain of work because of their responsibility for dependent lives (Heinz and Krüger 2001).…”

Section: Previous Research and Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond the trailing spouse: the commuter partnership as an alternative to family migration

Klis

Mulder

2008

J Hous and the Built Environ

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Combining commitments in the domains of work, family, and residence has become a complex puzzle for the contemporary (dual-earner) family, especially when these choices concern family migration. For some families, non-standard alternatives to family migration, such as a commuter partnership in which one partner lives near work part of the time, might provide the best solution in matching both individual and family commitments. Through in-depth interviews with both partners in commuter partnerships, this paper explores the commitments that form the basis underlying the choice for a commuter partnership as an alternative to family migration or not migrating. It further describes how the balance in partners' individual and their common interests, as well as the gender ideologies the couple holds, influence the choice for a commuter partnership. Our findings suggest that the commuter partnership is regarded as a suitable compromise between several commitments not only for partners who are both oriented towards their employment careers, but also for couples who have distinct commitments in their private lives. Partners in egalitarian partnerships were found to view the commuter partnership as a household arrangement that fitted their approach of reinforcing each other's interests and commitments. For couples with non-symmetrical gender beliefs we found that in order for one (usually male) partner to pursue a choice biography through the commuter partnership, substantial sacrifices were demanded from the (usually female) spouse.

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“…Today, however, there is growing recognition that female life courses are more sensitive to competing demands from various institutions that women are forced to deal with (Heinz and Krüger 2001). As Cerami (2008) stressed it, in Central and Eastern European post-communist countries characterised by the economic restructuring resulting in changing social structure, welfare states have to face both old and new social risks, the main challenge being 'the establishment of new and different forms of refamilisation, in which women are required to fulfil the social and economic function of wives, mothers, workers, and care-givers in a new and substantially less secure market economy' (Cerami 2008(Cerami : 1099.…”

Section: A Glimpse On Precariousness Based On Life-course Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Romanian Households Dealing with Precariousness: A life-course approach

Vlase

2015

European Societies

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This paper addresses the main pathways through which households avoid slipping into poverty in Romania by employing a life-course approach. Recent researches on social stratification found that in every country we can delineate a particular social layer composed of households living just above the poverty threshold, whose members struggle to reach a more secure prosperity while facing constant threats of downward mobility. Drawing on recent precarious prosperity research, and based on in-depth interviews carried out in 2013 with 25 households situated in between poverty and prosperity from a Romanian city (Cluj-Napoca), we use a life-course approach in order to account for the main routes into precarious decency of our sampled cases. We found evidence that opportunities for agency in order to overcome precariousness are contingent on household's type, its gender composition and members' interlocking life trajectories. Life-course approach allows us to understand household situation in time perspective and to account for the influence of changing structural context framing individuals' life-course patterns. At the same time, individuals' life courses are increasingly de-standardised within the current post-communist context. The transition from state planned to market economy, coupled with the minimalistic welfare state, and with the low social and institutional trust altering the solidarity of communities are joint factors leading to declining opportunities to rely on other resources than those provided by household members. Interviewed households vary according to their composition, history and assets, further affecting the odds of slipping into poverty. Therefore, our paper raises concerns for policy-makers.

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Life Course: Innovations and Challenges for Social Research

Cited by 186 publications

References 0 publications

Healthy ageing and home: The perspectives of very old people in five European countries

Healthy ageing and home: The perspectives of very old people in five European countries

Beyond the trailing spouse: the commuter partnership as an alternative to family migration

Romanian Households Dealing with Precariousness: A life-course approach

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