Search results

The purpose of this paper is to outline an approach to understanding later life issues through the conceptual framework of “transitions”.

The paper draws on a wide ranging review of the literature, supported by two workshop sessions involving key stakeholders and experts in the field.

An analysis of efficacy or otherwise of the support available for people undergoing some of the major transitions is undertaken and some of the key issues arising from this are presented.

The study derives its data largely from a review of published literature and therefore lacks the input from older people themselves.

The analysis provides guidance to policy makers and others interested in the later life agenda with well-researched recommendations for change.

There are significant social implications in the recommendations and the opportunity for the experiences in later life to be framed in a transitions paradigm.

This is a very original piece of work as no other review has presented the conceptual framework of transitions alongside a practical analysis of the value of current support arrangements across the major transitions.

Drawing from a life course theory, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between material reliance and quality of life for consumers going through a life transition, with attention given to individual differences and transition-specific characteristics.

Study 1 uses qualitative interviews with transitioning consumers, while Study 2 tests a survey-based conditional mediation model.

For liminal consumers, perceived personal control mediates the effect of material reliance on quality of life, but having negative expectations of the transition can override this effect.

Although previous research has given attention to material reliance, personal control and quality of life in various combinations, the impact of their combined effect has not been examined. Furthermore, these constructs have not been examined within the context of life transitions.

This research aims to investigate how individuals' perceptions and reallocation of resources due to a life transition uniquely affect their responses to marketing activities.

A multi-method approach is undertaken, with Study 1 being qualitative in nature and Study 2 consisting of a quantitative experimental design. Study 1 consists of in-depth interviews with both newlyweds and empty nesters. Study 2 incorporates a survey design with 412 respondents; data is analyzed via structural equation modeling, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and post hoc multiple comparison tests.

Findings reveal that consumer appraisal of a transition event is a key predictor of response to marketing activities, and that consumers have an inverted-U shape response to advertising across three transition stages (anticipatory, liminal, re-established).

Because appraisal is not generally captured by market research, companies may be able to estimate appraisal by combining resource availability information with existing demographic data. Because resources are found to be a significant predictor of appraisal, by anticipating resource levels, a firm may be able to estimate appraisal and thus be able to forecast advertising responsiveness.

Researchers have not investigated how changes in the availability of time and other resources during life events affect consumers' appraisal of products, adaptation to new roles, or response to marketing efforts. As such, examining the influence of resources and transition stage on attitudes toward marketing activities during life transitions makes a meaningful contribution to the literature.

The study investigates the information-related challenges as well as the practices adopted by early-career researchers during transitions between roles and institutions. Its primary goal is to delve into how information behaviors serve as scaffolding during significant life shifts. Moreover, the research aims to provide actionable insights based on this scaffolding concept for individuals navigating transitions.

This preliminary and exploratory study took a phenomenological approach to examine the role of information seeking and personal information management (PIM) behaviors during life transitions. In-depth semi-structured interviews were held with 15 early-career researchers from various disciplines, who were about to finish their PhDs or had recently graduated.

By employing information seeking and PIM practices, participants were able to address three main information challenges that arose during the transition process: the timing of information behavior, the nature of information and the social components of the transition. The use of networked and independent information seeking/validation practices enabled to establish a sustainable network of transition-related information, reducing uncertainty. PIM practices helped planning the transition, maintaining information over the long-term and gaining control over personal information.

This study underscores the significance of information behaviors, encompassing both information seeking and PIM, as scaffolding mechanisms during crucial life transitions. It offers essential insights that can guide the creation of impactful interventions and resources. Additionally, the research illuminates the pressing demand for more in-depth exploration in this domain.

To understand how young men with disabilities react against overarching narratives of independence during the transition to adulthood in independent living and interdependent living arrangements with parents in order to address the gap between transition policy and real lived experience.

I use life history interviews and ethnographic “go-alongs” with nine men with mobility impairments to understand how they experience and make sense of independent living and interdependence during the transition to adulthood. Transcripts and field notes were analyzed using grounded theory methodology.

Data reveal diverging pathways participants took to interdependent living situation, rooting before transition, and returning during transition. These pathways are shaped by logics of residential decision-making: accessibility expectations and individual adaptability. Those who rooted before transition developed accessibility expectations that motivated them to remain living their parents’ homes while those who returned during transition relied on individual adaptability to overcome physical inaccessibility. Individual adaptability did not overcome inaccessibility – all returned to their parents’ homes. Pathways shape how each group of participants experienced and made sense of interdependent living arrangements and independent living. Those who rooted before transition found interdependence to be a route to increased independence, and did not consider independent living a marker of adulthood. Those who returned during transition found that the interdependence they experienced increased feelings of dependence.

Experiences and meanings emerging adults with disabilities have during the transition to adulthood reveal the complexity of interdependence and independent living. The pathways and the social forces shaping those pathways to interdependent living arrangements have implications for life course theory and disability policy.

Purpose – Our study focuses on the impacts of young adults’ financial situation and agency on success and satisfaction regarding developmental tasks (attainments in educational, work and social domains) in the context of economic upheavals.

Methodology/approach – The study is part of the longitudinal Finnish Educational Transitions Studies (FinEdu), in which high school students (N=614 at baseline) participated once before and three times after graduation (ages 19–25) while progressing to tertiary education and employment.

Findings – Agency (indicated by achievement and social approach strategies) increased, whereas achievement and social avoidance decreased from ages 19 to 25. Financial situation improved from an objective but not subjective perspective. Both high and increasing levels of agency were related to high levels of success and satisfaction regarding developmental tasks at age 25. In particular, social approach was related to educational attainment, sense of belonging, and romantic relationship satisfaction. High initial levels of agency and an improved financial situation predicted low economic pressure at age 25.

Research implications – Both sociopolitical structures and individual agency are important in shaping life course transitions in early adulthood. The apparent discrepancy between the macro-level national economic recession and young adults’ relatively high economic satisfaction could be explained by high agency in a welfare state context.

Social implications – The study shows important links between individuals’ life course and the societal context of Finland, a secure Nordic welfare state in the midst of global economic upheavals.

Originality/value of paper – Our longitudinal study makes a significant contribution to life course research by comprehensively conceptualizing the developmental tasks and considering their individual and social determinants.

This chapter reports on a course that is designed to facilitate the students’ transition out of college and into life after graduation. It describes how the course foregrounds the problems students face, both the technical aspects of the transition and the emotional experience, unthought out ideas about what the students want, their goals, and how they might go about achieving their goals. The authors report on the course culture, assignments, observations from teaching the course, student feedback from focus groups, surveys, behavior, as well as summaries of data on the student’s experience.

The need for this course is supported by the research literature on emerging adulthood. In addition, the authors report on focus group and survey data gathered. The modern discourse on the post-college transition commonly emphasizes economic and practical hurdles, such as educational loan debt, student employability, skill transferability, career networking, and job interviewing. Receiving far less attention are the psychosocial and developmental dimensions that color the student experience of the graduation transition.

Yet very few colleges and universities have paid attention to this glaring need, especially public institutions with many first-generation college students. This chapter describes a college course dealing with the problem of transitioning to life after college taught in an intellectual, communal, and personal atmosphere.

The practice of mandatory retirement age implies that some retirees may be forced to retire or are compelled to continue working. Retirement would then be determined by age and not by their personal choices. Against this backdrop, this study aims to understand the associations retirement transition types (voluntary or involuntary retirement) with retirement satisfaction and life satisfaction.

This mixed research study seeks to understand how the retirement transition type in the form of voluntary or involuntary retirement is associated with retirement satisfaction and life satisfaction. In this study, 103 Singapore baby boomer retirees were interviewed and a questionnaire was administered.

Results showed that voluntary retirement and high social–emotional resources had significant positive associations with retirement satisfaction, and that financial resources and retirement satisfaction had significant associations with life satisfaction.

Based on this study’s findings, a synthesized conceptual model was designed to illustrate the different roles and associations of resources with retirement satisfaction and life satisfaction. A retirement trajectory model was also created to cater for policy design at various stages of the retirement experience.

The retirement experience is multi-dimensional. It is highly relevant to almost every older adult. The relevance of this topic also meant that the findings in this study carry a potentially higher impact. Using the life span and multi-level perspectives to examine retirement, the findings in this study invite several timely human resources (HR) and national policy reviews. This paper proposed HR policy practices at three main points – late-career, retirement and bridge employment.

A unique feature of this study was to differentiate and compare “retirement satisfaction” with “life satisfaction”, and the differentiation of “retirement transition”, “retirement adjustment” and the “retirement trajectory”. The differentiation of these concepts can better shape policies targeted at different phases of the retirement experience. In addition, the resource-based dynamic perspective was used to identify and understand the types of resources that have significant associations with retirement and life satisfaction. For example, social–emotional resources were found to be significantly associated with retirement satisfaction, and financial resources were found to be significantly associated with life satisfaction.

The aim of this article is to overcome an endogenous view of work, as a category isolated from the other existential spheres, and to identify an alternative approach to understanding how (paid) work and other life domains interweave. Biographical transitions between work and non‐work are analysed, paying specific attention to the processes of gender positioning.

The research is based on the analysis of 60 narrative interviews with men and women working in the Italian public sector (the civil service and the health service). The interviews were audiorecorded, transcribed, and then subjected to narrative analysis, focusing in particular on plots, biographical transitions and positioning processes.

The analysis has brought out the predominant plots, as well as the alternative ones, of the work stories narrated by men and women interviewed, highlighting the specific gender positioning that subtended different attributions between men and women in the inter‐relations between work and the personal and familial sphere.

The results show the opportunity to focus next research on organizations that use managerial models innovative in terms of time organization and performance assessment, giving visibility and legitimacy to alternative narratives on the interweaving among people's different biographical trajectories.

The paper proposes the concept of “biographical transition” as an interpretative category with which to study the different strategies and experiences of work/life balance and an heuristic tool able to give sense to the complex interweaving among different life trajectories in the contemporary society.