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The life course approach is the dominant interdisciplinary framework for understanding the determinants, patterns, and consequences of work and family lives. Life course research remains heavily focused on a small number of Western countries, which constitute less than 15% of the global population. By contrast, only a few studies explicitly use a life course approach to study work-family lives in regions commonly associated with the Global South., Western-centrism in mainstream life course research leads to a limited and biased understanding of human lives, which is increasingly untenable in a multi-polar, deeply interconnected world. The life course paradigm can provide a useful framework for understanding the nature and variation of human life courses in the Global South.
To understand the structural and cultural realities that shape life courses in Southern contexts, however, life course researchers need to expand their theoretical and methodological repertoire. Protracted economic stagnation and instability, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath, a lack of decent jobs in formal labor markets, as well as limited social protection, complicate the transition to adulthood in many low and middle-income countries, with varied implications for family formation, living arrangements, and work and career development. At the same time, cultural globalization, educational expansion, economic development and crises, and the enduring legacies of colonialism have shifted social norms and aspirations associated with becoming an adult.
Young adulthood, approximately the age range between 16 and 35, is often considered the most crucial phase in the adult life course. It is a “demographically dense” time in which most major life transitions take place, including the transition from school to work, leaving the parental home, and starting a family. It is particularly important to understand young adults’ work-family life courses in the Global South. Many Southern societies experience a “youth bulge” combined with widespread youth unemployment. As a result, many young people are unable to achieve their desired career and family trajectories, and they are stuck in a protracted “waithood.” The lack of opportunities for young adults is seen as a root cause of many contemporary global problems, including social unrest, radicalisation, crime, and irregular migration.
This course will introduce the basic tenets of the life course paradigm, discuss qualitative and quantitative empirical case studies on young adult life courses in low income countries, and relate core life course theoretical concepts to theoretical developments on youth and young adulthood in the Global South. |
