Class Dynamics in Later Life:
A Life Course Approach

International Sociological Association
XVth ISA World Congress of Sociology
Brisbane, Australia,
July 7 -13, 2002

The World in the Twenty First Century:
Ambivalent Legacies and Rising Challenges
RC 11 - Sociology and Aging

Marvin Formosa (PhD Student - Bristol)
Institute of Gerontology, University of Malta
Msida, MSD 06, MALTA
email: marvin.formosa@um.edu.mt
 

This research paper attempted to apply the life course perspective to class relations amongst young-old persons. It thus featured as an example of intracohort differentiation that emphasised the existing variability within one cohort. Its presentation is divided roughly into two main parts. Whilst the first part focuses on conceptual foundations directing the study, the second presents an analysis of some data collected during my completed Masters' dissertation and ongoing Doctorate amongst Maltese older persons.

Conceptual Foundations

As many of you are aware, gerontology from a political economy perspective demanded particular attention to social class (e.g. Estes, 1979; Walker, 1981; Quadagno, 1982; Phillipson, 1982; Estes, Gerard, Zones, and Swan, 1984). Consequently, it is no surprising that sociological gerontology contained a central interest on the interrelation between class and old age. A perusal of the available literature uncovers four distinct areas of investigation, namely, the stratification of the life course (e.g. Foner, 1988; Posner, 1995) stratification over the life course (e.g. Crystal and Shea, 1990; OíRand, and Henretta, 1999), class action in later life (e.g. Posner, 1995; Vincent, 1999), and the relationship between age- and class-consciousness (e.g. Dowd, 1980, Vincent, 1995). This is, without doubt, highly welcome considering the gerontological myopia found in traditional class analysis due to - as our chairperson remarked more than 14 years ago - the fact that all classical sociological theories shared a conception of modern societies where paid employment constituted their foundation dynamic (Kohli, 1988).

It is therefore with some genuine surprise that many of us may read Carol Estes (1999) recent comment "that work on the [interrelation between class and old age] is surprisingly underdeveloped". Initially, one is tempted to view Estesí allegation as an exaggeration. Sociological gerontology has not only focused on the class concept in a fairly consistent manner, but also lacked any major attack of class scepticism. However, I must say that an attentive reading of Estes' (ibid.) observation reveals that her criticism is not quantitative in spirit, but underlies a concern for quality, a preoccupation with the field's superficiality and incoherence. In fact, a critical perusal of the available literature does elicit a number of ontological and methodological shortcomings, with their major lacunae constituting their choice to follow Wright's (1978) 'mediated' rationale. By equating the class position of older persons to their final occupation prior to retirement, studies were simply oblivious to the unique ontological status of the class concept in a gerontological setting.

Of course, this point would be categorically rebutted by Marshall (1997) whose comparative study concluded that "the non-employed seem to carry much of the baggage of class with them when they leave the labour market". Yet, on close scrutiny this rationale seemed rather unconvincing. Primarily, the employed survey method was by definition inadequate to comprehend how feelings of relationships with significant others, interpretations of turning-points, local structures of opportunities, and provincial games of competition affected class dynamics in later life.

Indeed, ethnographic studies indicated clearly that older persons carry only a limited part of their mid-life class baggage. Following retirement the distinction between the 'have' and the 'have-nots' tends to get partially transformed into the 'culturally knowledgeable' and unknowledgable' (Okely, 1990). Thus, it is not given that memories of past class positions have a more powerful hold than present circumstances, or that the relations of the workplace constitute the primary dynamic of class relations for the aged  (Foner, 1988; Estes, 1999).

At this point, I must admit, it would be totally pretentious for me to suggest a solution for all the aforementioned lacunae. However, one possible way forward seems to lie in embodying the case in Marxís (and Engels, 1970 : 59; 1963 : 15) dictum which states that whilst "circumstances make men just as much men make circumstances" at the same time "men make their own historyÖunder circumstances directly encountered from the past". Following Marx's rationale it is apparent that the life course paradigm provides a valuable inroad as it represents a convergence of thinking about processes at both macro and micro-levels of analysis for both populations and individuals over time  (George, 1993; Elder 1995). The paradigm is even more beneficial because it does not provide a strict set of rules, but just an analytical rationale built around the concepts of location in time and space, linked lives, human agency, and timing which researchers are invited to metamorphose according to their area of interest (Elder and Pellerin, 1998; Settersen, 2002).

It is evident that to-date, the best cross-fertilisation between class analysis and the life course tenets is found in Bourdieu's  (1984, 1985, 1986, 1987) unorthodox approach to class. Bourdieu's class analysis is founded on the notion of class trajectory, a highly congenial concept to the life course paradigm. In brief, the notion of class trajectory refers to how the volume and composition of capital of the class agent or grouping alters over the life course. The notion of trajectory thus results from the struggle for symbolic capital within different fields in a specific temporal phase. Through this notion it is possible to link the tripartite research intersection between history, structure, and agency, and consequently, explain why agents in similar class positions may veer towards the tastes of different classes.

Empirical Analysis

Life History research uncovered 3 dominant class groupings amongst Maltese older persons, that is, the dominant, middle, and working classes - each including a number of internal fractions. The dominant class was divided between the Power Elite and the Bourgeoisie. Whilst the former included older people who owned some of the largest enterprises, the latter consisted of persons from the traditional professional bodies. Their life-long affluent position engendered an ethos of distinction, that is, a confident relation to world and self which generated a high degree of casualness, grace, elegance, and freedom.

Consequently, the middle class contained three main class fractions. In a respective hierarchical order, one located the petty bourgeoisie such as small business owners, shopkeepers, and self- employed artisans; the new middle class ranging from accountants, teachers, to bank managers; and finally the new rich, persons who have become relatively well-off through low status occupations. Despite, different compositions of capital, all exhibited a sense of cultural goodwill which bore many of the outward appearances of refined taste but which lacked the tacit knowledge and the taken-for-granted refinements that give to legitimate culture the sense of distinction.

The final social grouping consisted of the Working Class, composed of skilled and unskilled manual workers. Whilst both fractions held low volumes of social and cultural capital, skilled workers were in better financial position. Yet, their life-long struggle for survival engendered amongst both fractions an ethos of Necessity, characterised by what is necessary and practical, make them inclined towards a pragmatic functional aesthetic, and perceiving artistic intentions as abnormal conduct.

Deploying the life course rationalisation of the class trajectory one finds that all class groupings contained individuals who were located in incongruous class situations. Here, one must point out that this approach is not in any way connected to Wright's 'contradictory class locations'. Whilst Wright's approach was static, mechanical, and deterministic, a Bourdeusian life course approach is retrospectively longitudinal, sympathetic to human agency, and goes beyond the Marxist embodiment of class in the relations of production.

Taking the petty bourgeoisie as an example, qualitative in-depth interviews uncovered two possible class trajectories, either an upwardly or a downwardly trajectory - with each of these paths leading to separate class situations.

On one hand, the 'Declining' Petty Bourgeoisie consisted of older persons whose life course class trajectory shifted from the dominant class to the upper echelons of the middle class stratum. The cause behind such a shift ranged from entrepreneurial miscalculations to just being unlucky. As a result of this downward class trajectory, their personalities were tainted by regressive dispositions which in turn generated a number of repressive inclinations, particularly visible in their resistance against every sign of departure from the old order.

Convinced that they owed their position, even if diminished, to a simple, serious, honest life, they adhered to the most austere and traditional values which can be located in their special resentment against the new lax morality but being in favour of the values of work, order and rigour. This was particularly evident in their negative reactions against all inclinations towards modernism which they only perceived as moral decadence. Indeed, when concerned with everyday tasks they made choices which may be termed as regressive in as much as they do reflect more the dispositions of the working classes but without having been forced on them by the force of necessity.

On the other hand, the Rising Petty Bourgeoisie, consisted of upwardly mobile older persons, gearing themselves to rise higher to more elite distinction. However, in their attempt to emulate the standards set by the dominant class and 'striving for distinction' betrayed an awkward pretension resulting from the manifested discrepancy between their ambitions and possibilities. Consequently, they were characterised by a high degree of cultural acquisition and accumulation - characteristics that conveyed the fundamental ambiguity of a class fraction that wished to escape easy identification with the middle class but which lacks the perquisite resources to join the dominant class it emulates.

This class can be perhaps best exemplified with a popular television comedy entitled "Keeping up Appearances" in which the story line is provided by the female main characterís relentless efforts to display the bourgeoisí legitimate consumption behaviours but who is constantly frustrated by the actions of her decidedly working-class relatives, that is, players in the stratification game that have not risen with her. Whilst she aims at respectability and at picking cues from the upper classes about how and what to consume, her family is still located within the doxa of economic necessity.

In this respect, a life course perspective enables us to witness how diverse class trajectories swerve older class agents to either an optimistic progressivism toward their future chances in the modern world or, on the contrary, a pessimistic and regressive conservatism that embraced most extreme and austere values.

Conclusion

On a concluding note it is clear that the life course paradigm provides a valuable inroad in the analysis of gerontological class dynamics. Primarily, the paradigm represents a convergence of thinking in sociology that makes it possible to view older subjective biographies within historical constraining structures. And secondly, it includes the potential to examine the unique ontological nature of 'class' in later life, as it evolves from the tripartite combination of historical contexts, institutional ascriptive structures, and individual biographies.

One final word of caution though. This research paper focused on particular older persons in a specific temporal and geographical setting. Therefore, it does not provide findings are necessary atypical of all present older cohorts. What it provided, and in my opinion quite successfully, was some insight into the class dynamics amongst an older cohort - an area of investigation in which is relatively devoid of rigorous theoretical and empirical analysis.
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