Search

Being one of the quintessential resources to bounce back from adversities, the complexities of social support in the context of transitions to single parenthood are seldom fully grasped. While many studies are limited by (quantitative) data on type and intensity of support received, in-depth qualitative data facilitates an understanding of the hurdles in the support exchange. In this study, we describe six hurdles single parents have to overcome and four perspectives single parents have of these hurdles. These results are based on a grounded theory study using 244 semistructured interviews with Flemish lone parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Western culture, divorce is becoming a transition event in individual life courses. As a result, it starts to be celebrated in ritual forms. In Italy, divorce is still a highly deritualized event from both civil and religious perspectives, although the transformations that make divorce a transition event have been occurring in recent years. This article depicts the complexities of divorce in a society such as Italy, where instances of social change coexist with strong elements of tradition. Emerging cultural practices related to couple dissolution in both formal and informal contexts are discussed. Structural determinants emerge as a force that can contribute to shaping the divorce rite as a new rite of passage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we share the experience of collecting and organizing pre-modern Korean historical materials into a searchable digital archive. The Ajou Interdisciplinary Research Group (AIRG) has continuously collected historical data of pre-modern Korea for the past 10 years to assist the study of family history, historical demographics, and social mobility. This paper describes the rich data sources for historical studies of Korea, such as household registers, genealogies, and state examination registers, and we summarize contributions to the study of historical demography and related fields.

In this paper, we share the experience of collecting and organizing pre-modern Korean historical materials into a searchable digital archive. The Ajou Interdisciplinary Research Group (AIRG) has continuously collected historical data of pre-modern Korea for the past 10 years to assist the study of family history, historical demographics, and social mobility. This paper describes the rich data sources for historical studies of Korea, such as household registers, genealogies, and state examination registers, and we summarize contributions to the study of historical demography and related fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's Geographies actively engages with critical understandings of age‐based research. However, the concept of age is an uncritical entity in these studies fueled by western concepts of childhood. Demarcating age numerically runs the risk of measuring childhoods in the Majority Worlds with Minority World concepts that are not culturally sensitive, but also forecloses any innovations. Researchers often spend so long debating definitions and boundaries when it is often in the grey areas of scholarship and life that the most exciting events and outcomes occur. This review begins with navigating 'grey areas of age' from how it is often measured in spaces of conceptual ambiguity with regards to experiences of being in between formal definitions of childhood or 'Children's Geographies.' This is elaborated upon from Eurocentric linages that have shaped the subfield of Children's Geographies, and in which the subfield should continue shifting from to further decolonize Eurocentric research related to age and childhood. The paper ends by presenting ways of further advancing the subfield of Children's Geographies through (inter)generational positioning concepts and new interdisciplinary life course studies that further nuances the social variable of age as a grey area in the subfield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Previous research has documented a consistent association between current socioeconomic status (SES) and cytomegalovirus (CMV). Early life is likely a critical period for CMV exposure and immune development, but less is known about early-life socioeconomic factors and CMV, particularly in older age populations. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we investigated the association between life course socioeconomic disadvantage and immune response to CMV among older adults. Methods Using ordered logit models, we estimated associations between several measures of socioeconomic disadvantage and the odds of being in a higher CMV Immunoglobulin G (IgG) response category in a sample of 8,168 respondents aged older than 50 years. Results We found a significant association between educational attainment and CMV IgG response. Those with less than a high school education had 2.00 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.67–2.40) times the odds of being in a higher CMV category compared to those with a college degree or greater. In addition, we also observed a significant association with parental education and CMV response. Individuals with parents having 8 years or less of schooling had 2.32 (95% CI: 2.00–2.70) times the odds of higher CMV response compared to those whose parents had greater than high school education. Discussion CMV IgG levels in older adults are associated with both early-life and adult SES. Life course socioeconomic disadvantage may contribute to disparities in immunological aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large body of research identifies the critical role of early-life social contexts such as neighborhoods and households in shaping life course trajectories of health. Less is known about whether and how school characteristics affect individual health and contribute to population health inequality. However, recent scholarship argues that some school environments are so stressful due to high levels of violence, disorder, and poverty that they may be “toxic” to student health, but this hypothesis has not been tested using population data. Integrating insights from the life course perspective and stress process model, we use rich longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (n = 11,382), diverse markers of physiological functioning and psychological well-being, and multilevel regression models to examine whether and how school characteristics shape trajectories of physiological dysregulation and depressive risk from adolescence through early adulthood. Findings reveal that, across multiple measures of physiological functioning and psychological well-being, the social and structural characteristics of schools play an essential role in shaping health risk from adolescence through young adulthood—long after students left school. In particular, indicators of school-level violence and perceptions of safety and school social disconnectedness had especially strong associations with health risk in both the short- and long-term. School socioeconomic composition was also strongly associated with physiological dysregulation in young adulthood, net of individual and neighborhood socioeconomic exposures. Together, findings from this study suggest that school environments can serve as early-life stressors in the lives of young people that unequally shape health trajectories and contribute to broader patterns of health inequality.

A luxurious set of spinning implements was discovered as part of the furnishings in the grave of a woman, unearthed in the surroundings of ancient Viminacium. A unique amber distaff with the upper part modelled in the form of a female bust stands out as the most important part of the grave assemblage. Similar artefacts were often misinterpreted, but this specimen was found together with a spindle, thus confirming that it actually is a distaff. Miniature copies of spinning equipment made out of precious materials are known from sepulchral contexts, and are described as objects expressing feminine virtue. It is considered that they were used in wedding rites, thus indicating the possible age of the deceased. Spinning implements can represent useful tools for studying the life course of Roman women. In this paper, an attempt was made to identify the divinity or person depicted on the distaff from Viminacium, considering the symbolic nature of these artefacts. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 7018: Viminacium, Roman city and military legion camp - research of material and non-material culture of inhabitants by using the modern technologies of remote detection, geophysics, GIS, digitalization and 3D visualization]

Summary: Methods and models for longitudinal data with categorical, multi‐dimensional outcomes are quite limited, but they are essential to the study of life histories. For example, in the Swiss Household Panel, information on the co‐residence and professional status of several thousand individuals is available through to age 45 years. Interest centres on the time and order of life course events such as having children and working full or part time and the duration of the phases that they delineate. With data of this type, optimal matching and clustering algorithms relying on a distance metric or parametric models of duration in a competing risks framework are used; the appropriateness of each derives from competing goals and orientation. We prefer model‐based approaches when certain goals are paramount: simulation of individual trajectories; adjusting for time‐dependent covariates; handling multistate trajectories and missing outcomes. Several of these goals are particularly challenging when the number of states is of moderate size, and many transitions are infrequent and/or time inhomogeneous. Using the Swiss Household Panel, we demonstrate the appropriateness of latent class growth curve models for analysing sequence data. In particular, models including heterogeneous dependence structure provide new techniques for assessing goodness of fit as well as yield insights into social processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cemeteries of Colonia Iulia Emona, like those of numerous other Roman-period towns, were largely excavated before scientific analyses became standard practice. This article looks into how various aspects of identity can be reconstructed from such an incomplete data set. Existing data is evaluated to establish gender and age, while the perception of aging in the Roman world and the presence of underrepresented groups, such as children and the elderly, are also discussed. Furthermore, I will look at objects that are not typically associated with any specific category, such as drinking and dining equipment and, to a lesser extent, objects related to occupations. The ultimate aim of this paper is to develop a methodology that provides more insight into ‘sexless and ageless’ graves and potentially enables their interpretation in terms of identity.

Background: The incidence of major depression among adults has been shown to be socially differentiated, and there are reasons to seek explanations for this before adulthood. In this cohort study, we examined whether academic performance in adolescence predicts depression in adulthood, and the extent to which externalizing disorders explain this association.Methods: We followed 26,766 Swedish women and men born 1967-1982 from the last year of compulsory school, at age about 16, up to 48 years of age. We investigated the association between grade point average (GPA, standardized by gender) and first diagnosis of depression in national registers of in- or out-patient psychiatric care. We used Cox proportional hazards models, adjusting for lifetime externalizing diagnoses and potential confounders including childhood socioeconomic position and IQ.Results: During follow-up, 7.0% of the women and 4.4% of the men were diagnosed with depression. A GPA in the lowest quartile, compared with the highest, was associated with an increased risk in both women (hazard ratio 95% confidence interval 1.7, 1.3-2.1) and men (2.9, 2.2-3.9) in models controlling for potential confounders. Additional control for externalizing disorders attenuated the associations, particularly in women.Conclusions: The findings suggest that poor academic performance is associated with depression in young adulthood and that the association is partly explained by externalizing disorders. Our results indicate the importance of early detection and management of externalizing disorders among children and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on scholarship within life course studies, particularly notions of pathway analysis, to demonstrate how such analysis can be combined with cartography in order to be applied to studies of missing and murdered indigenous women, as a means to better understand the geographies of violence they live and die in. In this sense, this work utilizes the theoretical underpinnings of pathways analysis but transforms it into an indigenized tool for narration and analysis, by linking the pathways studied with relationships to land, colonialism, and intergenerational violence. By telling the narratives of the women studied in this paper in this way, this paper demonstrates that the binaries that are frequently applied to missing and murdered indigenous women create popular knowledge on this violence that is not necessarily reflective of reality, and that when we look beyond or between these binaries, different patterns and sites of violence emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Field studies of natural mammal populations present powerful opportunities to investigate the determinants of health and aging using fine-grained observations of known individuals across the life course. Here, we synthesize five decades of findings from one such study: the wild baboons of the Amboseli ecosystem in Kenya. First, we discuss the profound associations between early life adversity, adult social conditions, and key aging outcomes in this population, especially survival. Second, we review potential mediators of the relationship between early life adversity and survival in our population. Notably, our tests of two leading candidate mediators—social isolation and glucocorticoid levels—fail to identify a single, strong mediator of early life effects on adult survival. Instead, early adversity, social isolation, and glucocorticoids are independently linked to adult lifespans, suggesting considerable scope for mitigating the negative consequences of early life adversity. Third, we review our work on the evolutionary rationale for early life effects on mortality, which currently argues against clear predictive adaptive responses. Finally, we end by highlighting major themes emerging from the study of sociality, development, and aging in the Amboseli baboons, as well as important open questions for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adds another dimension to the debate whether Jewish modernity originated with the Haskalah in eighteenth-century Germany or among the Sephardic Jews living in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Noting that one element of modernity was rationalism, the author uses two commonly employed indices of rationalism (literacy and numeracy) to find that the most literate and numerate of Castile's various socio-economic or ethnic groups were the Luso-conversos who settled in Castile in the seventeenth century--members of the Nagao, the group at the center of the debate over Amsterdam's contribution to Jewish modernity. Another aspect of modernity involves an awareness of chronological time. In this respect as well members of the Nagao viewed their lives somewhat differently than did others. These traits, coupled with the well-documented skepticism and secularism of the group, point to marked quantifiable differences between the Sephardim and their Castilian and Portuguese contemporaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• More children diagnosed with cancer during primary school survive into adulthood. • Adult survivors of childhood cancer experience lower educational and occupational attainment. • Educational participation as a social process is poorly understood for children with cancer. • We synthesize recommendations for practice and policy to improve educational participation. • We call for engagement with Life Course principles with implications for research practice. Adult survivors of childhood cancer experience poorer long-term socioeconomic outcomes, yet the influence of educational participation during primary school years is not well understood. This review synthesizes empirical findings from seventy-four quantitative and qualitative peer-reviewed studies, published from 2000-2019 and identified through a search of nine databases. The findings point to the following recommendations to improve policy and practice: provision of teaching and learning away from school; focus on student-centeredness; strengthening home-school-hospital partnerships; facilitation of teacher and peer acceptance; school re-entry support; resources and funding; and advocacy. The findings suggest that a Life Course lens is appropriate to conceptualize the role of educational participation for mitigating long-term impacts of childhood cancer during developmental transitions from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Life Maps Process (LMP) is a personal development methodology which the author has developed as a form of applied anthropology. The LMP is a three-stage program utilizing tools for life review (i.e., life mapping), reflection on thematic life patterns, and future schematic (re-)modeling. A system of twelve "primordial Archetype" figures are subjectively associated with Life Themes and are mapped across Life Chapters to illuminate personality aspects that have impacted a person's development in relation to Significant and Critical life events (SLE's/CLE's). Case study findings are presented and theoretical foundations from social and cognitive anthropology as well as from analytical and archetypal psychology are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers some important questions faced by youth as they enter and adapt to paid work. We focus on two key questions: (1) how many hours should teenagers work during the school year and (2) what available jobs are desirable? To help answer these questions, we review studies that have examined the effects of early work experiences on academic achievement, positive youth development, and health-risk behaviors. We also draw upon nationally representative data from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) study to illustrate some new findings on youth employment. Moderate work hours, especially in jobs of higher-quality, are associated with a broad range of positive developmental outcomes. These questions are not only important to teenagers and their parents, they also reflect key debates among scholars in sociology, developmental psychology, and economics regarding the potential short- and long-term consequences of early work experiences for social development and socioeconomic achievement. Although work intensity is an important dimension of adolescent work experience, it is clearly not the only one and we argue that it may not even be the most important one. By focusing on types and qualities of jobs, more can be gained in terms of understanding for whom and under what conditions teenage work does provide benefits for and detriments to youth development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]