累积的异质性：生命历程视角下的老年人分化

本文以生命历程理论为研究视角,以深度访谈的方法收集老年人“主诉”的关于过去的生活资料,试图通过对个人能动性与生命历程时间性的强调,来分析个体生命历程与社会变迁的相互嵌入过程,以及这一过程中不断分化的内部机制。研究发现,老化的过程是一个随时间推移不断累积与分化的过程,累积因素的先后顺序对个体之间的分化具有重要意义,累积是生命历程资本遭遇生命历程风险的结果,是社会结构与个人能动性相互作用的动态过程,其中社会政策的变迁对累积过程具有决定性的影响。

Cumulative Heterogeneity: Differentiation of Older Adults from the Life-Course Perspective

Taking the life course perspective, the author conducted in depth interviews of older adults to gather their past life information from their narratives. This paper attempts to analyze the inter weaving of the individual’s life course and societal changes with an emphasis on the individual’s agency and the temporality of the life course, as well as the internal mechanisms for the constant differentiation in this process. This study has shown that aging is a process of continuous accumulation and differentiation along the dimension of time. The order of the factors for accumulation has a very important impact on the differentiation among the individuals. Accumulation is a product of the life course capital interacting with the life course risks, and it is a dynamic process of the individual’s agency interacting with social structures. Changes of social policies have a decisive impact on the cumulative process.