chapter 10 the lives of adults copyright 2010 mcgraw-hill australia pty ltd ppts to accompany...
TRANSCRIPT
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Chapter 10
The Lives of Adults
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-1
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Focusing on adults at mid-life
What ages?• Roughly mid-30s to around 60• But no clear beginning or end
Cohorts have different life experiences• Baby boomers
- Large post-WW II population- NZ born 1946- 1972
• What defines YOUR cohort?
Diversity in adult lives• Age of having a child or losing a parent will differ
across people
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-2
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Do adults keep developing?
• No one universal plan for every person’s development
• ‘Stages’: very difficult to define for adults, so avoid this term!
• Erikson’s theory focuses on development through the lifespan, while Piaget and Freud stop at physiological maturity
• US-based research (e.g. Levinson 1978, 1996) has a social and cultural context that may not be so relevant here
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-3
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Discourses about adulthood
[Refresher on discourse: words and practices that seem
to define reality in an unquestionable way]
• Adulthood is the goal of childhood and the end of playtime
• Adults are sensible, mature grown-ups
• Autonomy is the key to being an adult
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-4
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Physiological changes at mid-life
• Ageing begins from the moment you’re born!
• Common markers of ageing at mid-life:
- grey hair, skin changes
- eyes have less flexible focus & require more light
• Changes require adaptations in behaviour
e.g. care in night driving
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-5
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Changes in the body’s reproductive system at mid-life: the climacteric
• Menopause:- Final cessation of menstruation in women- Average age is 52 in NZ (Mackenzie, 1984)
• Peri-menopause: Gradual process before cessation• End of child-bearing years may signal sadness (Bart, 1972)
or relief (Rubin, 1979) for women
• Male menopause? Little evidence for this, as male hormones decline gradually over time
• Cultures differ greatly in their interest in physiological changes at mid-life
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-6
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Psychological changes: is there a ‘mid-life crisis’?
• Levinson (1978) and Sheehy (1976) suggested that people at mid-life have doubts about their path in life in their 30s/40s and may undergo a transition to change direction
• Doubts today about how usual such transitions are
• Each cohort may experience different socio-political pressures at this age– In NZ, current mid-lifers may have worries about saving
for later years, whereas– Previous generations could rely on NZ Superannuation
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-7
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Your working life
• Longer lifespan today compared with 100 years ago. Many people are healthier & fitter than previous generations at the same age
• Changed social policies mean retirement is seldom compulsory (e.g. at age 60 or 65)
• Adults may have periods of paid work and periods without paid work throughout mid-life
• Economic pressures differ by generation: current mid-lifers struggle with a troubled world economy, fewer jobs
Do you think you will retire from work? When?
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-8
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Cognitive development and learning in adulthood
• Intelligence & mental reasoning are composed of many skills– Some of these may decline as adults age (Schaie, 1994)– Earlier cross-sectional studies gave the misleading view
that mental ability declines with age– Longitudinal studies showed less decline over age
(Schaie & Willis in Claiborne & Drewery, 2009, p. 321)
• Wisdom may increase over age– Ability to think through problems, reflect on experience &
make realistic judgements (Labouvie-Vief & Hakim-Larson, 1989)
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-9
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Many indigenous cultures value wisdom
• Māori culture recognises the mana (prestige) that accrues over life
• Hence, elders are very highly valued for their wisdom
• Roles of mātua and kaumātua recognise this knowledge accumulated over a lifetime (Macfarlane, 2004c)
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-10
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A second chance at education?
• Formal education ends with compulsory schooling or tertiary education study at universities, polytechnics, whare wānanga
• But adults may:
– continue to have professional development in their jobs
– attend adult education classes
– experience learning in the community or over the internet.
• Participation by NZers over age 40 in tertiary education tripled between 1995 and 2005: now 30% of tertiary students (Scott, 2006)
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-11
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Gender and paid work
• Changing patterns of working lives of women and men in recent years
• Women’s involvement in paid work has increased in the past 50+ years
• Due to family responsibilities, women are less likely to work full-time than men
• And women (age 15+) are still paid less than men, even with the same qualifications, earning 87% of what men earn (hourly measure) (Statistics NZ, 2005a)
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-12
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Expanding family connections at mid-life
• Families are smaller than 50 years ago
• Later childbearing:
- Mothers aged 30 to early 40s starting a family are no longer unusual
• Current NZ birth rate increased 2005-2009 (Statistics NZ, 2009d)
• This affects the family life cycle
- Mid-life adults may have longer involvement with children at home who are youth or young adults
- Mid-lifers may also have responsibilities for ageing parents
• Mid-lifers may feel a ‘sandwich’ pressure’ between the two generations (e.g. Hillcoat-Nallétamby & Dharmalingam, 2004)
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-13
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Diversity in adult lives
• Erik Erikson’s theory
- Crisis for mid-lifers: generativity vs stagnation
• Kotré’s (1984) extension of Erikson’s views on generativity:
- Biological and parental generativity may differ
- Work generativity may involve mentoring
- Cultural generativity could help whole communities
e.g. whānau, hapū and iwi development
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-14
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Mid-lifers without partners
• Being single increasingly common for NZ adults• Many adults never live with a partner• NZ’s divorce rate has dropped over last 15 years
- Partly due to change in pattern of relationships away from
marriage to serial monogamy (sequence of committed
relationships)
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-15
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Single parenting
• With more mid-life adults living without a partner, single parenting has become more common
• NZ society more accepting of single parents than in previous decades though there is still prejudice against families that do not fit a stereotypical norm (Pool, 1996; Ritchie & Ritchie, 1997)
How would the generational ‘sandwich pressure’
affect single parents?
Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd PPTs to accompany Claiborne & Drewery, Human Development 10-16