Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-5g6vh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T17:29:41.271Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Population ageing in a lifecourse perspective: developing a conceptual framework

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2015

KATHRIN KOMP  and
STINA JOHANSSON
KATHRIN KOMP*
Affiliation:
Department of Social Research/Sociology, University of Helsinki, Finland.
STINA JOHANSSON
Affiliation:
Department of Social Work, Umeå University, Sweden.
*
Address for correspondence: Kathrin Komp, Department of Social Research/Sociology, P.O. Box 18, 00014University of Helsinki, Finland E-mail: kathrin.komp@helsinki.fi
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Population ageing is a global trend that affects individual life plans, family arrangements, market structures, care provisions and pension schemes. We combine insights from demography and lifecourse research to understand better the causes of population ageing. Demography explains population ageing by describing changes in fertility, mortality and migration rates. Lifecourse research argues that these rates are interconnected because they are embedded in the lifecourses of individuals. An individual's experiences at an early age can influence behaviours at a later age, thereby creating continuity throughout the lifecourse. Additionally, lifecourse research underlines that social networks – such as families – and countries influence lifecourse. Thus, historical events and past experiences have already set the course for today's demographic changes. Moreover, the effects of policies that strive to influence population ageing will not be evident for years or even decades to come. This paper introduces a conceptual framework that explains how the lifecourse perspective can be applied to the phenomenon of population ageing and illustrates the framework through a case study of Germany. The case study highlights that insights from the micro-, meso- and macro-levels need to be combined to achieve a deeper understanding of population ageing. Scholars can use the framework presented in this paper as a guideline for merging arguments from demography and lifecourse research in future studies.

Keywords

population ageingdemographylifecoursesocial inequalitieslong-term effectsmodeltheoryGermany
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 36 , Issue 9 , October 2016 , pp. 1937 - 1960
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bauerkämper, A. 2014. The twisted road to democracy as a quest for security: Germany in the twentieth century. German History, 32, 3, 431–55.Google Scholar
Bengtson, V. L., Elder, G. H. Jr and Putney, N. M. 2005. The life-course perspective on ageing: linked lives, timing, and history. In Johnson, M. L. (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Age and Ageing. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 493–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benz, W. and Distel, D. (eds) 1992. Ueberleben und Spätfolgen [Surviving and Late Consequences]. Verlag Dachauer Hefte, Dachau, Germany.Google Scholar
Bernhardt, E. M. 1993. Fertility and employment. European Sociological Review, 9, 1, 25–42.Google Scholar
Bijak, J., Kupiszweska, D., Kupiszewska, M., Saczuk, K. and Kicinger, A. 2007. Population and labour force projections for 27 European countries, 2002–052: impact of international migration on population ageing/Projections de population et de population active pour 27 pays Européens 2002–052: impact de la migration internationale sur le vieillissement de la population. European Journal of Population/Revue Européenne de Démographie, 23, 1, 1–31.Google Scholar
Blossfeld, H.-P. 1986. Career opportunities in the Federal Republic of Germany: a dynamic approach to the study of life-course, cohort, and period effects. European Sociological Review, 2, 3, 208–25.Google Scholar
Bonney, N. and Love, J. 1991. Gender and migration: geographical mobility and the wife's sacrifice. The Sociological Review, 39, 2, 335–48.Google Scholar
Börsch-Supan, A., Hank, K., Jürges, H. and Schröder, M. 2009. Introduction: empirical research on health, ageing and retirement in Europe. Journal of European Social Policy, 19, 4, 293–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bouvier, B. 2002. Die DDR – ein Sozialstaat? Sozialpolitik in der Ära Honecker [The GDR – A Welfare State? Social Policies in the Era Honäcker]. Dietz, Bonn, Germany.Google Scholar
Buchholz, S., Hofäcker, D., Mills, M., Blossfeld, H.-P., Kurz, K. and Hofmeister, H. 2009. Life courses in the globalization process: the development of social inequalities in modern societies. European Sociological Review, 25, 1, 53–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caselli, G. and Vallin, J. 1990. Mortality and population ageing. European Journal of Population/Revue Européenne de Démographie, 6, 1, 1–25.Google Scholar
Castles, F. G. 2003. The world turned upside down: below replacement fertility, changing preferences and family-friendly public policy in 21 OECD countries. Journal of European Social Policy, 13, 3, 209–27.Google Scholar
Chesnais, J.-C. 1990. Demographic transition patterns and their impact on the age structure. Population and Development Review, 16, 2, 327–36.Google Scholar
Chesnais, J.-C. 1992. The Demographic Transition. Stages, Patterns, and Economic Implications. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Christensen, K., Doblhammer, G., Rau, R. and Vaupel, J. W. 2009. Ageing populations: the challenges ahead. The Lancet, 374, 9696, 1196–208.Google Scholar
Chung, H. and Muntaner, C. 2007. Welfare state matters: a typological multilevel analysis of wealthy countries. Health Policy, 80, 2, 328–39.Google Scholar
Coale, A. J. 1984. The demographic transition. The Pakistan Development Review, 23, 4, 531–52.Google Scholar
Coale, A. J. 2002. How a population ages or grows younger. In Trovato, F. (ed.), Population and Society: Essential Readings. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 241–6.Google Scholar
Coale, A. J. and Treadway, R. 1986. A summary of the changing distribution of overall fertility, marital fertility, and the proportion of married in the provinces on Europe. In Coale, A. J. and Watkins, S. C. (eds), The Decline of Fertility in Europe. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 31–181.Google Scholar
Coleman, D. 2002. Replacement migration, or why everyone is going to have to live in Korea: a fable for our times from the United Nations. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society – B Biological Sciences, 357, 1420, 583–98.Google Scholar
Coleman, D. 2008. The demographic effects of international migration in Europe. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 24, 3, 452–76.Google Scholar
Coleman, J. S. 1986. Social theory, social research, and a theory of action. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 6, 1309–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dannefer, D. 2003. Cumulative advantage/disadvantage and the life course: cross-fertilizing age and social science theory. Journals of Gerontology, 58B, 6, S327–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deighton, A. 1998. The remaking of Europe. In Howard, M. and Louis, R. (eds), The Oxford History of the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press, New York, 190–202.Google Scholar
Destatis 2009. Statistisches Jahrbuch 2009 fuer die Bundesrepublik Deutschland [Statistical Yearbook 2009 for the Federal Republic of Germany]. Federal Statistical Office of Germany, Wiesbaden, Germany.Google Scholar
Destatis 2011. Older People in Germany and the EU. Federal Statistical Office of Germany, Wiesbaden, Germany.Google Scholar
Destatis 2015. Wanderungen zwischen Deutschland und dem Ausland 2004 bis 2013 [Migration Between Germany and Other Countries 2004 to 2013]. Available online at https://www.destatis.de/DE/ZahlenFakten/GesellschaftStaat/Bevoelkerung/Wanderungen/Tabellen/WanderungenInsgesamt.html [Accessed 3 April 2015].Google Scholar
Dietz, B. 2000. German and Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union to Germany: background, trends and implications. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 26, 4, 635–52.Google Scholar
Elder, G. H. Jr. 1975. Age differentiation and the life course. Annual Review of Sociology, 1, 165–90.Google Scholar
Elder, G. H. Jr. 1994. Time, human agency, and social change: perspectives on the life course. Social Psychology Quarterly, 57, 1, 4–15.Google Scholar
Elder, G. H. Jr. 1999. Children of the Great Depression. Social Change in Life Experience. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado.Google Scholar
Eurostat 2014 a. Population on 1 January by Age and Sex. Available online at http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=demo_pjan&lang=en [Accessed 28 January 2014].Google Scholar
Eurostat 2014 b. Population on 1 January by Broad Age Group and Sex. Available online at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/population/data/database#; [Accessed 22 October 2014].Google Scholar
Evans, R. J. 1997. Rereading German History 1800–1996. From Unification to Reunification. Routledge, London.Google Scholar
Evers, A., Lewis, J. and Riedel, B. 2005. Developing childcare provision in England and Germany: problems of governance. Journal of European Social Policy, 15, 3, 195–209.Google Scholar
Fassmann, H. and Munz, R. 1994. European East–West migration, 1945–1992. International Migration Review, 28, 3, 520–38.Google Scholar
Feichtinger, G. and Steinmann, G. 1992. Immigration into a population with fertility below replacement level – the case of Germany. Population Studies: A Journal of Demography, 46, 2, 275–84.Google Scholar
Ferraro, K. F. and Shippee, T. P. 2009. Aging and cumulative inequality: how does inequality get under the skin? The Gerontologist, 49, 3, 333–43.Google Scholar
González-Ferrer, A. 2013. La nueva emigración española. Lo que sabemos y lo que no [The New Spanish Emigration. What We Know and What We Do Not Know]. Fundación alternativas, Madrid.Google Scholar
Gordo, L. R. 2009. Why are women delaying motherhood in Germany? Feminist Economics, 15, 4, 57–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagen, W. W. 2012. German History in Modern Times: Four Lives of the Nation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Hagestad, G. and Uhlenberg, P. 2005. The social separation of young and old: a root of ageism. Journal of Social Issues, 61, 2, 343–60.Google Scholar
Hareven, T. K. 1994. Aging and generational relations: a historical and life course perspective. Annual Review of Sociology, 20, 437–61.Google Scholar
Harkonmäki, K., Korkeila, K., Vahtera, J., Kivimäki, M., Suominen, S., Sillanmäki, L. and Koskenvuo, M. 2007. Childhood adversities as a predictor of disability retirement. Journal of Epidemiology & Public Health, 61, 6, 479–84.Google Scholar
Haug, S. 2004. Wanderungen zwischen Deutschland und den mittel- und osteuropäischen EU-Beitrittsländern [Migration between Germany and the Central and Eastern European EU accession countries]. Wirtschaft und Statistik, 2004, 3, 280–7.Google Scholar
Hobcraft, J. 2006. The ABC of demographic behavior: how the interplay of alleles, brains, and contexts over the life course should shape research aimed at understanding population processes. Population Studies: A Journal of Demography, 60, 2, 153–87.Google Scholar
Hua, W. 2005. The role of social context: putting similarity effects on organizational attachment in perspective. Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Hurst, L., Stafford, M., Cooper, R., Hardy, R., Richards, M. and Kuh, D. 2013. Lifetime socioeconomic inequalities in physical and cognitive aging. American Journal of Public Health, 103, 9, 1641–8.Google Scholar
Kalache, A., Aboderin, I. and Hoskins, I. 2002. Compression of morbidity and active ageing: key priorities for public health policy in the 21st century. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 80, 3, 243–4.Google Scholar
Kattel, R. 2010. Financial and economic crisis in Eastern Europe. Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics, 33, 1, 41–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kesternich, I., Siflinger, B., Smith, J. P. and Winter, J. K. 2014. The effects of World War II on economic and health outcomes across Europe. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 96, 1, 103–18.Google Scholar
Kirk, D. 1996. Demographic transition theory. Population Studies: A Journal of Demography, 50, 3, 361–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Klein, D., Hofmeister, M., Lockyer, J., Crutcher, R. and Fidler, H. 2009. Push, pull, and plant: the personal side of physician immigration to Alberta, Canada. International Family Medicine, 41, 3, 197–201.Google Scholar
Knodel, J. 1983. Demographic transitions in German villages. Population Studies Centre Research Report 83-45, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.Google Scholar
Kogan, I. 2011. New immigrants – old disadvantage patterns? Labour market integration of recent immigrants into Germany. International Migrations, 49, 1, 91–117.Google Scholar
Kohli, M. 2007. The institutionalization of the life course: looking back to look ahead. Research in Human Development, 4, 3/4, 253–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Komp, K. and Johansson, S. (eds) 2015. Population Ageing from a Lifecourse Perspective: Critical and International Approaches. Policy Press, Bristol, UK.Google Scholar
Komp, K., Starke, P., Van Hooren, F., Schneckenburger, E., Simonsen, H., Heuer, S. and Rahn, E. 2013. In the wake of the economic crisis: social change and welfare state reforms. Welfare Studies Working Paper 3/2013, Department of Sociology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden.Google Scholar
Korpi, W. and Palme, J. 1998. The paradox of redistribution and strategies of equality. Welfare state institutions, inequality and poverty in Western countries. American Sociological Review, 63, 5, 661–87.Google Scholar
Kvist, J. 2015. A framework for social investment strategies: integrating generational, life course and gender perspectives in the EU social investment strategy. Comparative European Politics, 13, 1, 131–49.Google Scholar
Lee, E. S. 1966. A theory of migration. Demography, 3, 1, 47–57.Google Scholar
Lee, R. 2003. The demographic transition: three centuries of demographic change. Journals of Economic Perspectives, 17, 4, 167–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lesthaeghe, R. 1995. The second demographic transition in Western countries: an interpretation. In Mason, K. O. and Jensen, A.-M. (eds), Gender and Fertility Change in Industrialized Countries. Clarendon, Oxford, 17–62.Google Scholar
Lesthaeghe, R. 2010. The unfolding story of the second demographic transition. Population and Development Review, 36, 2, 211–51.Google Scholar
Lesthaeghe, R. and Neels, K. 2002. From the first to the second demographic transition: an interpretation of the spatial continuity of demographic innovation in France, Belgium and Switzerland. European Journal of Population, 18, 4, 325–60.Google Scholar
Mannheim, K. 1928. Das Problem der Generationen [The problem of generations]. Kölner Vierteljahreshefte der Soziologie, 7, 157–89.Google Scholar
Mayda, A. M. 2010. International migration: a panel data analysis of the determinants of bilateral flows. Journal of Population Economics, 23, 4, 1249–74.Google Scholar
Mayer, K. U. 1988. German survivors of World War II: the impact on the life course of the collective experience of birth cohorts. In Riley, M. W., Huber, B. J. and Hess, B. B. (eds), Social Structures and Human Lives. Sage, Newbury Park, California, 229–46.Google Scholar
Mayer, K. U. 2002. The paradox of global social change and national path dependencies: life course patterns in advanced societies. In Woodward, A. and Kohli, M. (eds), Inclusions and Exclusions in European Societies. Routledge, London, 89–110.Google Scholar
Mayer, K. U. 2004. Whose lives? How history, societies and institutions define and shape life courses. Research in Human Development, 1, 3, 161–87.Google Scholar
McDonald, P. 2006. Low fertility and the state: the efficacy of policy. Population and Development Review, 32, 3, 485–510.Google Scholar
Meyer, T. 1998. Retrenchment, reproduction, modernization: pension politics and the decline of the German breadwinner model. Journal of European Social Policy, 8, 3, 195–211.Google Scholar
Miera, F. 2008. Long-term residents and commuters: changes of patterns in migration from Poland to Germany. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies, 6, 3, 297–311.Google Scholar
Milewski, N. 2010. Immigrant fertility in West Germany: is there a socialization effect in transitions to second and third births? European Journal of Population, 26, 3, 297–323.Google Scholar
Minkler, M. and Estes, C. L. (eds) 1991. Critical Perspectives on Aging: The Political and Moral Economy of Growing Old. Baywood Publishing, Amityville, New York.Google Scholar
Munz, R. 1994. East–West migration, 1945–1992. International Migration Review, 28, 3, 520–38.Google Scholar
Munz, R. 1996. A continent of migration: European mass migration in the twentieth century. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 22, 2, 201–26.Google Scholar
Munz, R. and Ulrich, R. 1998. Germany and its immigrants: a socio-demographic analysis. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 24, 1, 25–56.Google Scholar
Nauck, B. 2007. Immigrant families in Germany. Family change between situational adaptation, acculturation, segregation and remigration. Zeitschrift fuer Familienforschung, 19, 1, 34–54.Google Scholar
Osborne, E. W. 2005. Casualties. In Tucker, S. C. (ed.), The Encyclopedia of World War II. A Political, Social, and Military History. Volume 1, ABC Clio, Santa Barbara, California, 300–1.Google Scholar
Pampel, F. C. 1993. Relative cohort size and fertility: the socio-political context of the Easterlin effects. American Sociological Review, 58, 4, 496–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Petmesidou, M. and Guillen, A. M. 2014. Can the welfare state as we know it survive? A view from the crisis-ridden South European periphery. South European Society and Politics, 19, 3, 295–307.Google Scholar
Pfau-Effinger, B. 2005. Welfare state policies and the development of care arrangements. European Societies, 7, 2, 321–47.Google Scholar
Reher, D. S. 2004. The demographic transition revisited as a global process. Population, Space and Place, 19, 1, 19–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reid, L., Sutton, P. and Hunter, C. 2010. Theorizing the meso level: the household as a crucible of pro-environmental behavior. Progress in Human Geography, 34, 3, 309–27.Google Scholar
Rosenfeld, R. A., Trappe, H. and Gornick, J. C. 2004. Gender and work in Germany: before and after reunification. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 103–24.Google Scholar
Schönwälder, K. 2006. The difficult task of managing migration. The 1973 recruitment stop. In Gregor, N., Roemer, N. and Roseman, M. (eds), German History from the Margins. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 252–67.Google Scholar
Schwarzer, O. 1999. Sozialistische Zentralwirtschaft in der SBZ/DDR [Socialist Centrally Planned Economy in the SOC/GDR]. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart, Germany.Google Scholar
Settersten, R. 1999. Lives in Time and Place: The Problems and Promises of Developmental Science. Baywood, Amityville, New York.Google Scholar
Settersten, R. 2003. Propositions and controversies in life-course scholarship. In Settersten, R. (ed.), Invitation to the Life Course: Towards New Understandings of Later Life. Baywood, Amityville, New York, 15–45.Google Scholar
Settersten, R. and Mayer, K. U. 1997. The measurement of age, age structuring and the life course. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 233–61.Google Scholar
Siegrist, J. and Marmot, M. 2004. Health inequalities and the psychosocial environment – two scientific challenges. Social Science & Medicine, 58, 8, 1463–73.Google Scholar
Sobotka, T. 2008. The diverse faces of the second demographic transition in Europe. Demographic Research, 19, 6, 171–224.Google Scholar
Statistisches Bundesamt 1952. Statistisches Jahrbuch fuer die Bundesrepublik Deutschland 1952 [Statistical Yearbook for the Federal Republic of Germany 1952]. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Germany.Google Scholar
Tabeau, E., Van den Berg Jeths, A. and Heathcote, C. 2001. Towards an integration of the statistical, demographic and epidemiological perspectives in forecasting mortality. In Tabeau, E., Van den Berg Jeths, A. and Heathcote, C. (eds), Forecasting Mortality in Developed Countries. Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 281–303.Google Scholar
Tinker, A. 2002. The social implications of an ageing population. Mechanisms of Ageing and Development, 123, 7, 729–35.Google Scholar
United Nations 2000. The UN population division on replacement migration. Population and Development Review, 26, 2, 413–7.Google Scholar
United Nations 2013. World Population Prospects: The 2012 Revision. Available online at http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/EXCEL_FILES/1_Population/WPP2012_POP_F09_1_PERCENTAGE_OF_TOTAL_POPULATION_BY_BROAD_AGE_GROUP_BOTH_SEXES.XLS [Accessed 10 December 2013].Google Scholar
United Nations 2014. Total Fertility. Availableonlineat http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/EXCEL_FILES/2_Fertility/WPP2012_FERT_F04_TOTAL_FERTILITY.XLS [Accessed 22 January 2014].Google Scholar
Van der Kaa, D. J. 1997. Options and sequences: Europe's demographic patterns. Journal of the Australian Population Association, 14, 1, 1–29.Google Scholar
Van der Kaa, D. J. 2004. Is the second demographic transition a useful research concept: questions and answers. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, 2, 4–10.Google Scholar
Van der Loo, H. and Van Reijen, W. 1997. Paradoxen van Modernisering [Paradoxes of Modernization]. Coutinho, Bussum, The Netherlands.Google Scholar
Van Kersbergen, K., Vis, B. and Hemerijck, A. 2014. The Great Recession and welfare state reform: is retrenchment really the only game left in town? Social Policy & Administration, 48, 7, 883–904.Google Scholar
Vogt, T. C. 2013. How many years of life did the fall of the Berlin Wall add? A projection for East German life expectancy. Gerontology, 59, 3, 276–82.Google Scholar
Walsh, K., Carney, G. M. and Léime, Á. N. 2015. Ageing Through Austerity. Critical Perspectives from Ireland. Policy Press, Bristol, UK.Google Scholar
Wierling, D. 2001. Generations and generational conflict in East and West Germany. In Klessmann, C. (ed.), The Divided Past: Re-writing Post-war German History. Berghahn, Oxford, 69–90.Google Scholar
Wiesenthal, H. 2003. German unification and ‘Model Germany’: an adventure in institutional conservatism. West European Politics, 26, 4, 37–58.Google Scholar
Witte, J. D. and Wagner, G. G. 1995. Declining fertility in East Germany after unification: a demographic response to socioeconomic change. Population and Development Review, 21, 2, 387–97.Google Scholar
Zelinsky, W. 1971. The hypothesis of the mobility transition. Geographical Review, 61, 2, 219–49.Google Scholar