New Directions in the Sociology of Aging (2013) / Chapter Skim
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9 Constrained Choices: The Shifting Institutional Contexts of Aging and the Life Course--Phyllis Moen
9 Constrained Choices: The Shifting Institutional Contexts of Aging and the Life Course--Phyllis Moen
Pages 175-216
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From page 175... ...
Institutions are transported by various carriers -- culture, structures, and routines -- and they operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction." This chapter proposes that institutional theory constitutes an important prism through which to advance understanding of the range and impacts of patterned social arrangements channeling age and aging processes, although its use is underdeveloped in the study of aging. While there are a multiplicity of social institutions (policies, programs, practices, and conventions)
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From page 176... ...
; (2) age stratification/life course frameworks underscoring how social welfare and labor market policies have "institutionalized" the age-graded life course (Kohli, 2007; Kohli et al., 1991; Mayer, 2004, 2009; Meyer, 1986; Moen and Spencer, 2006; Mortimer and Shanahan, 2003; O'Rand and Henretta, 1999)
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From page 177... ...
Fig5-1.eps 1946-1964) now moving to and through the retirement years are confronting unraveling labor market exit and pension expectations, policies, and practices that their parents and grandparents took for granted.
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, facing often contradictory rules, laws, and realities about labor market and retirement exit and entry portals, pensions, and health-care eligibility, must make strategic adaptations, which can then become the seeds of innovation and institutional change. For example, a competitive uncertain global economy has increased concerns of older workers about their job security, retirement timing, and future pensions, including whether they can "afford" to retire.
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From page 179... ...
potential scientific and societal pay-offs of an innovative program of future research crossing levels of analysis to address ways (taken-for-granted, age-graded) institutions systemically open up and constrain life chances and life quality for those at different ages and life stages, often in distinctively gendered ways.
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From page 180... ...
. Social forces, as well as deliberate policy changes, can also shift social structures, challenging taken-for-granted institutionalized expectations and practices that disadvantage some segments of the population while advantaging others (Blossfeld and Hofmeister, 2006; Blossfeld, Buchholz, and Hofäcker, 2006; Hudson, 2009; Warner, Hayward, and Hardy, 2010; Williamson, 2011)
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From page 181... ...
And women who "work" at home taking care of children or infirm adults do not earn Social Security credits. The distinctive life courses of women and men tend to disadvantage older women, in particular, in light of the gendered nature of their carework obligations, along with discriminatory practices in the labor market and in welfare distributions throughout the life course (such as the ways part-time jobs do not provide pensions, unemployment insurance, or even health insurance)
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However, women's greater engagement in the labor market is occurring even as both men and women are increasingly at risk of (1) discontinuities due to layoffs and forced early retirement buyouts and (2)
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An important question for future research: Is it still the case that being "off-time" in transitions continues to matter, in light of the fact that labor market and family transitions no longer adhere to strict templates as to timing, sequence, or duration?
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Future research advances can come from understanding the ways institutionalized social factors affect health, as well as from investigations of the health impacts of emerging innovative arrangements. This promising research agenda could capture the significance of existing -- and emerging -- institutional conventions and conditions for both life chances and life quality over the life course.
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From page 185... ...
"Rationalization" of old age refers to the provision of care in the most efficient ways, with cost concerns and cutbacks often trumping the quality of the care provided, even in nonprofit organizations providing medical and social services. Exposure and Vulnerability In another body of literature sociologists, demographers, and social epidemiologists theorize exposure and vulnerability to the risks of poor health and mortality as systematically stratified by age, gender, and other social-locational markers (such as education, income, labor force status, nativity, occupation, race/ethnicity, and marital status)
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From page 186... ...
affecting older adults' life chances and life quality. However, this framing could result in scholars paying insufficient attention to (1)
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From page 187... ...
A promising future sociological research agenda on age, health, and well-being would build on a growing body of work emphasizing the embeddedness of individuals in particular social structures with corresponding risks, rules, claims, and resources that shape their beliefs, behaviors, health, and life quality over the life course (see House, 2002; Link and Phelan, 1995; Lutfey and Freese, 2005; Phelan and Link, 2005; Phelan et al., 2004; Tilly, 1998; Turner, Wheaton, and Lloyd, 1995; Wheaton and Clarke, 2003)
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From page 188... ...
underscore the fact that both resources and claims shift with time, altering the social environments in which lives play out. For example, it has been well established in observational research that social conditions of work matter for health and life quality, including positive self-conceptions, depressive symptoms, and behavior, as well as heart disease (e.g., Kahn, 1981; Karasek, 1979; Karasek and Theorell, 1990; Keyes, 1998; Kohn and Schooler, 1982; Mirowsky and Ross, 1998; Muhonen and Torkelson, 2004; Ross and Mirowsky, 1992; Ryff and Keyes, 1995; Thoits, 1999; Wheaton, 1990)
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From page 189... ...
and how institutional entrepreneurs might be responding with the development of new arrangements. Sociologists, demographers, and social epidemiologists can make real contributions to science and society by investigating whether and under which conditions deliberate shifts in social structures -- including policy regimes shaping retirement, civic engagement, education, housing, income supports, and paid work -- produce corresponding shifts in exposure to and durations of risk factors contributing to poor health and mortality.
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From page 190... ...
SOCIAL INTEGRATION/SUPPORT/ISOLATION Closely aligned with themes of age stratification and health risks are the concepts of social integration (and related concepts of engagement and participation) , social support, and social isolation.
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From page 191... ...
Essential for future theory, research, and policy development on aging in the 21st century is recognition that institutionalized policies and norms undergirding the standardized life course (based on education in youth, childrearing, and employment through earlier adulthood, and withdrawal from these roles in later adulthood) mean progressively fewer
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From page 192... ...
Transitions out of paid work, the onset of disability, or chronic health conditions can trigger changes in network ties, possibly precipitating greater isolation (Cornwell, Laumann, and Schumm, 2008; Smith and Christakis, 2008)
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From page 193... ...
is not simply the absence of constraining social structures; rather, degrees of choice and control are institutionalized within the social organization of and power distribution in roles and relationships. Some policies, practices, and conventions permit greater opportunities for agency than others (see, for example, a workplace innovation giving employees greater control of their work time in Kelly, Moen, and Tranby, 2011; Moen et al., 2011)
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From page 194... ...
Congruent with this approach, there is a great deal of research in the occupational health literature looking at person-job "fit," as well as the role of job control in moderating the effects of job demands (Muhonen and Torkelson, 2004) , suggesting a potentially fruitful research agenda on "fit"
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From page 195... ...
While job control is theorized as a key risk factor impacting mortality and health, retirement control may encompass control over the timing of retirement and control over the nature of the exit (voluntary/involuntarily, a gradual or a sharp exit, multiple exits/re-entries) , as well as control over the conditions of life in retirement.
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From page 196... ...
, with the degree of personal control socially stratified and unevenly distributed across the life course. An example of the way institutional arrangements limit or expand adaptive strategies in later adulthood (and in doing so affect geographical population distributions and compositions as well as health and well-being)
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From page 197... ...
Future study of how institutions articulate with the choice and nature of living environments may be increasingly significant for understanding aging processes. TIME, PLACE, AND SOCIAL CHANGE Sociologists can promote understanding of both behavior and life quality in the aging process by investigating the ways time, age, and the life course are socially organized; institutionalized time and age regimes are both simultaneously invisible and fundamental to the human experience.
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From page 198... ...
Studies promoting understanding of changing social institutions and contexts shaping the aging process, therefore, need to be incorporated into a research agenda investigating the links between social structures, aging, and individual outcomes in order to identify promising interventions to promote life quality and life chances. FUTURE DIRECTIONS There is a multiplicity of social institutions (policies, programs, practices, conventions)
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From page 199... ...
. Studying Social Change Within and Across Cohorts A rich research agenda lies in understanding agency in the form in which individuals negotiate conflicting institutionalized norms and arrangements as they age, as well as the ways social actors are changing both norms and policies in light of increasing life expectancy and a turbulent global economy.
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can produce corresponding changes in the health and well-being outcomes of older Americans. Deliberate policy shifts can also change social structures, challenging taken-for-granted expectations and practices (structural leads rather than lags)
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, who examine different retirement exit patterns of women and men; and Wise (2004) , who links the labor force participation of older workers to particular social policies.
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From page 202... ...
are important theoretical and empirical questions for future scholarship. The answers may well turn on labor market, income support, and residential policies, as well as the health and disability statuses and family circumstances of individuals within particular subgroups of the population (see also Hudson, 2011)
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From page 203... ...
Future research is needed on the conditions under which family, health, career, or retirement course stage matter more in predicting behavior, resources, life chances, and life quality than simply age. For example, a 58-year-old father of a preschooler may behave far differently than a 58-year-old grandfather of a preschooler in terms of labor market/ retirement expectations and behavior.
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From page 204... ...
Current scholarly emphasis on older workers' labor market participation and retirement exits ignores the multidimensions and processual aspects of the life course -- that older adults, whether or not employed, are simultaneously community members, friends, family members, and possibly students, with identities, narratives, and expectations associated with their pasts, presents, and futures. To understand individual and organizational behavior requires seeing institutional contexts as not only defining appropriate behavior but also as providing older individuals with explanations or accounts of that behavior that helps them to make sense of their lives (Friedland and Alford, 1991; Sewell, 1992)
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older individuals differently located in institutionalized organizations and social structures tend to have different (or any) goals, as well as differential access to institutionalized means of achieving them, and (2)
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Tetrick (Eds.) , Handbook of Occupational Health Psychology (pp.
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American Journal of Epidemiology, 109(2)
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American Sociological Review, 78, 185-203. Costa, D.L.
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American Journal of Sociology, 110, 123-160. Emirbayer, M., and Miche, A
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Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 43(2)
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Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 49, 367-384. Link, B.G., and Phelan, J
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American Journal of Public Health, 90(11)
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Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 30, 241-256. Pearlin, L.I.
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Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 46(2)
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. New risks for workers: Pensions, labor markets, and gender.
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Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 42(3)
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