Introduction
The four major stages in the life course are most commonly defined as childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. While much emphasis is placed on the influence of socialization during childhood, Elder’s life course theory suggests that socialization occurs throughout the life span (Elder, 1994). Elder’s theory argues that as people age, they grow and change based on their life experiences. The life course theory specifies that aging is most significantly shaped by historical context, social timing, linked lives, and human agency.
The first principle, historical context suggests that the development of a person is influenced by the defining historical events that occur in their generation. The second principle, social timing, suggests that the incidence, duration, sequence of roles, and the relevant expectations of age will influence a person’s experiences throughout their lifespan. The linked lives principle argues that an individual's life course is heavily influenced by those who surround them and those who are important to them. The last principle, human agency indicates that an individual’s life course is influenced by the individual their self and their choices.
Additionally, the individual’s relationship to culture is relevant to the approach because it provides context for perspectives on aging. What may be considered “the best” way to age varies from different backgrounds which can impact the kind of life an individual has in old age.
The 72-year-old woman selected for the life course interview largely discussed the major transition in her life for when she moved from a small village in India to an unwelcoming neighborhood in Kentucky. This life transition was in the 1960s when she was a mother of two at the age of 21. The primary purpose of this paper is to examine how this major theme in the individual’s life shaped their life course. A second underlying goal of this paper is to apply the individual’s life events to Elder’s life course theory.
Methods
Participant
One participant was chosen to represent the population of 70 years of age or older. The participant is a 72-year-old Indian woman who will be called Jane for the purpose of keeping her identity confidential in this paper. Jane was born in India but has lived most of her life in the United States of America as she moved when she was 21-years-old.
Procedure
Jane was contacted two weeks prior to the interview and she agreed to meet at her home on September 30th, 2018. The interview took place in person at Jane’s home in a quiet part of her house away from other members of her family who were visiting at the time. Data collection was conducted by the author. The interview took approximately four hours with small breaks in between. The participant was informed of the purpose and confidentiality of the interview and agreed to begin. The interview began with general questions about Jane’s early life to grasp a sense of what her background was. The remaining bulk of the interview was influenced from Elder’s four principles of life course theory. The questions were centered around the themes of historical events, social timing, linked lives, and human agency. All parts of the interview were recorded by audio in addition to note taking. The data collected was later analyzed by replaying the audio recordings and taking more detailed notes about topics discussed that were relevant to the themes of the case study.
Discussion
The main purpose of the life course interview was to analyze how Jane’s major life transitions impacted her life course. The major change in Jane’s life when she moved from India to America in the 1960s was difficult for many reasons. Jane’s childhood in India was unique as she was one of nine children in a very influential family. The town of Madhugiri was populous yet most people that lived there knew of Jane’s family. Jane’s father was an educated man who owned the main bus transportation business in the district, and Jane’s mother who had more education than her husband, was on the city council for the government. In a very patriarchal country, Jane described her parents as wanting “equal opportunities for [her] and [her] brothers”. Jane was active in her community as a child and loved participating in her community plays and volunteer projects. Jane remembered always having nice clothes to wear and going to movies often with her family. This norm in Jane’s life shifted when her parents agreed to an arranged marriage when she was 14 years old. The man she married was 28, and the terms of the marriage included that Jane would not move to her husband’s house until she finished high school. However, after Jane’s exam scores in school were not as high as her parents had hoped, her parents failed to let her finish school and she moved to live with her husband.
After having two of her three children at the age of 17 and 21, Jane was faced with a difficult decision. Her husband was given a unique opportunity to study in America to be a civil engineer and wanted to move to Kentucky with Jane. Because of the expenses of school and the lack of money their family would be making, Jane was forced to leave her children in India with her family while she tried to build a life in America. This transition from being a valued member in her town in India to moving to a Caucasian neighborhood in Kentucky in the 1960s away from her young children proved to be “the greatest challenge” of Jane’s life. Jane discussed how she had always felt “childish” even after having children until she made the move to America. This transition acted as the shift from adolescence to adulthood for Jane. In Chris Gillard and Paul Higgs’s article “Connecting Life Span Development with the Sociology of the Life Course: A New Direction”, they discuss Erikson’s model of adult development and how “the development of identity was the first developmental task that an individual faces in becoming ‘grown up’. It sets the stage for the development of ‘intimacy’ – the transfer of emotional attachment away from the individual’s family of origin towards new and more stable peer relationships, a task that can only be successfully achieved once a stable sense of identity has emerged” (Gilleard, 2016). This idea echoes Jane’s situation as she was forced to grow up for her nuclear family as she left her place of origin. This stage of “generativity” in Erikson’s model is the last step before achieving “integrity”, defined in the article as “the last goal of individual development that Erikson sets aside for old age – when the person can finally lay claim not just to their individual identity but to the course of their life and all those networks within which it was co-produced.” (Gilleard, 2016). This rings true for how Jane described her life now with “little regrets because [she has] helped build a life full of opportunity for many generations in my family”.
A secondary goal of the life course interview was to assess how events in Jane’s life relate to the four principles of Elder’s life course theory: historical context, social timing, linked lives, and human agency.
Historical Context
Jane was born in 1946 to a large and influential family in India. Jane described her childhood as “happy and sheltered away from outside problems”. Thus, when she and her husband moved to Lexington, Kentucky in 1969 when she was 23 years old, the world was a very different place from what she thought it was. Encounters of racism were common as her family struggled to find someone to sell them an affordable home. Jane described her community as unwelcoming as everyone was unwilling to get to know her. Only a few families gave Jane opportunities to socialize and find work while her husband studied to get his Master’s degree. Jane worked as a babysitter and in a local factory to help compensate for the money spent on school and rent. Jane described this period of her life “very difficult financially” due to The Recession of 1969-1970 and The Great Inflation of the 1970s which made employment for a minority woman scarce. Jane’s economic situation in America may be a part of her generation’s “collective memory” historically, but due to her unique story Jane’s historical context may be more individually defining rather than generationally defining.
Religion, which was very important to Jane’s family growing up, was a big part of her life in America even with the limitations. There were no temples nearby to pray at, and not many other Hindu Indian families she knew of. Prayer was only practiced in a small area of her apartment with whatever limited materials she could take with her from India. The combination of racism, limited opportunities for minorities, and a very small community of Hindus made the adjustment to living in a new country challenging mentally. However, these challenges that make up Jane’s history impacted the course of her life. This relates to Elder’s idea of the importance of historical context which showed that “both historical time and place (i.e., region) make a difference in life opportunities and adult careers” (Elder, 1998). Jane’s struggles with money early in her life caused her family to be frugal which made it possible for them to have success later in life. Jane’s isolation from an Indian community led her to find a group of American housewives in her community who she is still in contact with today. Jane’s hardship of leaving her children behind in India caused her to be able to help provide a better life for them now as they all live in America with stable careers and families.
Social Timing
Elder’s principle of social timing briefly states how the personal impact of any change depends on where the person is in their lives at the time of the change (Elder, 1994). The course of Jane’s early formative life had many examples of non-normative social timing that impacted her future. While arranged marriages in India do have a history of getting young girls married, this was not what Jane expected for herself growing up. She was not the oldest daughter in the family, and therefore did not think that she would be the first in the family to marry. Getting married at 14 before finishing high school and leaving her family and country at 22 are significant examples of disorderly sequencing. These major events, or “turning points”, changed Jane’s life trajectory which shaped who she was as a person. Sociologist Steven Barkan writes how these “turning points,” “instill a sense of responsibility and also increase the costs of misbehavior… thus help[ing] account for the general improvement in behavior that occurs after people reach adulthood” (Barkan, 2011). This idea shows how sudden changes in one’s life course can turn them into a more responsible adult due to a greater pressure of succeeding in their new roles and responsibilities. This was the case for Jane as she felt the need to mature more quickly than her peers as she worked hard to save enough money to bring her children to the United States with her after four years. Jane’s life did not follow social norms that may have been expected of her if she had lived in India.
Linked Lives
Elder’s principle of linked lives discusses how as we age, individuals will make choices based on what role they play in respect to the people in their life. For Jane, it was her role as a wife and mother that determined the choices she made in adulthood. Jane’s very family oriented background in India was something that traveled with her in America. Jane discussed in her interview how she would never have left her children in India if she did not fully trust her parents to care for them and her husband to lead their family towards a better life. Elder’s (1985) idea that "each generation is bound to fateful decisions and events in the other's life course" supports Jane’s comfort in her commitment to move to America as she believed in the positive ripple affect her decision would have on the future generations of her family. This faith that her decisions would be eventually be beneficial to her family continued as her family relocated to Pittsburgh where her husband was offered a better job and her daughter would go to college. After years of not being fully accepted in her community in Kentucky, Jane found her new neighborhood to be very friendly. Jane spoke very highly of the housewives that lived on her street and described her relationship with them as “one of the most supportive relationships”. Elder’s principle of linked lives refers to “the interaction between the individual’s social worlds over the life span – family, friends, and coworkers.” (Elder, 1994). For Jane, the friends she made in Pittsburgh were involved in all her social worlds as they helped support her during her husband’s health scares, accepted her into their community instantly, and worked with her on community projects. These group of women were very influential and a positive impact on Jane’s life and she noted that they still see each other once a year even after all moving to different parts of the country.
Human Agency
Elder’s final principle of human agency highlights how individuals “construct their own life course through the choices and actions they take within the opportunities and constraints of history and social circumstances” (Elder, 1998). The constraints of history and social circumstances for Jane in her early adulthood were centered around the limited opportunities she had available to her as an uneducated, minority woman. Due to economic hardships, Jane’s decision to find work among restricted options caused her to work odd jobs as a babysitter, a factory worker, and as a nurse aide in a local hospital. Jane was happy to contribute to her family’s income as it did make things easier, however working did come with stressors. When Jane was pregnant at 23, the doctors suggested that she needed to be on bed rest due to complications. At the time, Jane was working her first job in America as a babysitter and could not afford to quit the employment opportunity she was given. Therefore, Jane’s pregnancy was unsuccessful. Jane believed that even though working during that time was “physically and mentally difficult”, it made her the “independent and resourceful” person she still is today. Jane’s choices to make sacrifices in her early adulthood helped shape her into a person who adapts to new situations easily. When discussing her life now, Jane shared that she thinks she is aging well despite living alone after her husband’s death. She decided to move close to her children in Texas and accept new technology. Jane most commonly uses her iPhone and iPad every day to stay in contact with her family. When no one can take her to her hair appointments, Jane learned how to use Uber and is comfortable going places on her own. In the article “On the Life Aesthetics of Aging People”, the authors discuss how “life aesthetics is imperative for seniors or the elder members of the society as the activities affect their social connection status, and psychological and physical health.” (Chang & Chou, 2015). Participating in everyday life aesthetics such as commuting by Uber, going to the beauty salon, and visiting friends across town, Jane resists the slowness that comes with aging. Additionally, by choosing to stay active within her community, accepting technology, and continuing to care for her personal hygiene, Jane believes she is choosing to age successfully.
Conclusion
Interviewing Jane was a very rewarding experience to learn about the hardships she had to experience for her family to be given opportunities for higher education and careers that she never had access to. She was a very engaging storyteller with a fascinating history. Although the interview served its purpose, there were some limitations of the interview including Jane being unable to meet for a second interview due to an out of town trip. Additionally, because Jane had family visiting at the time of the interview, it was a small environmental distraction from Jane’s answers which would cause her thoughts to be unorganized on occasion. However, for much of the interview Elder’s life course theory was useful in sectioning the interview into small sessions that helped Jane arrange her thoughts into a reliable sequence of events.
The life course theory argues that as people age, they grow and change based on their life experiences. Jane’s story of how the events in her life and the people in her social world shaped her into a more responsible, stronger, and independent person reflects Elder’s ideas. After getting to know Jane I do believe that she is aging successfully. Jane discussed how active her life is now as she enjoys socializing with neighbors and friends, entertaining her family at her home, and taking care of herself with exercise and skin care. When it was disclosed that the interview needed a participant 70 years or older, Jane stated how people do not believe she is 72 and how she never feels “old” either. This experience made me feel more optimistic about aging as Jane was a great example of what successful aging can look like. Living alone may not be a perfect situation, but Jane illustrates how that can be a small detail of your life if you are open minded to connecting with technology and finding a group of engaging people to spend your time with.