This chapter explores the notion of generativity, or a desire to give to others and a concern for the next generation, with attention paid to generativity as a feature of the life course. Life course sociologists explore the stages people go through during a lifetime, often with an eye toward what society expects of individuals at certain life stages and how these expectations are stratified (Gilleard and Higgs, 2016). Generativity has been conceptualized in different ways by various scholars but with the consensus that it is a stage of life first experienced during middle adulthood. Therefore, middle-aged people in prison should also experience this stage but face institutional barriers to being generative. That is, the authoritative nature of the prison institution limits the ability of people who are separated from free society to ‘give back’.

Generativity is the ‘concern in establishing and guiding the next generation’ (Erikson, 1950, p 267). Through generativity, adults seek to care for and contribute in positive ways to the world and the people they leave behind. People hope the lives of their children and the children of others will be good and will have meaning and value. Erikson (1950) regarded generativity as the psychological focus of the seventh stage in his eight-stage model of human development.

According to de St. Aubin and his colleagues (2004), generative adults hope to pass on the most valued traditions of the culture, teach the most valued skills and outlooks, impart wisdom, and foster the realization of human potential in future generations. Whereas Erik Erikson first coined the term ‘generativity’ and explored its implications and influence on adult development in his 1950 work Childhood and Society, it was his concept of identity that caught immediate attention and made Erikson famous. As McAdams and Logan (2004) observe, it was not until the 1980s that generativity finally emerged as a topic for empirical research among life span developmental psychologists, personality psychologists, and sociologists.

Erik Erikson's eight life stages

Whereas Freud stated that personality was developed and permanently defined during childhood, Erikson (1950) believed that personality continued to develop during adulthood in a series of eight stages that extend from birth to death.