Enduring the Great Recession in Late Midlife: Adaptive Strategies and Maintaining a Sense of Control

• In Event: 270 - Regular Session. Life Course

Abstract

This study uses the experience of financial loss among adults in later midlife, a time characterized by interdependence, stability, and environmental mastery, during the Great Recession as an opportunity to explore the tension between agency and structure. Using the 2006 and 2010 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we begin by examining change in middle-aged adults’ (n = 1,469; range = 51 – 60 years) sense of control across experiences of financial loss in income and assets. We then examined whether increasing household complexity or transactions of giving and receiving within the extended kin network facilitated or hindered maintaining a sense of control in the face of financial loss, and the cost of these strategies on relationship quality. Conditional change models suggest that compared to those who experienced stability, experiencing financial loss was associated with decreased sense of control and relationship quality, and increased household complexity and receipt of support. These associations differed across education, partnered status, and gender. Path analysis found change in individuals’ sense of control to be positively associated with increased giving and perceived social support, and negatively associated with increased household complexity and perceived social strain. These findings suggest that across socioeconomic strata, a proportional loss in financial resources resulted in a diminished sense of control. Consistent with the proposition that agency exists within structure, response to financial loss differed across social positions, which translated to varying capacities to maintain a sense of control in the face of loss.

Authors

• Shannon Teresa Mejía, Oregon State University

• Karen Hooker, Oregon State University

• Michelle Odden, Oregon State University

• Richard A. Settersten, Oregon State University