The chapter summarizes the book’s key conclusions. In relation to the current research landscape on midlife, the book sheds light on the usefulness of the concept of life transitions, especially concerning body changes, often in the context of work and care relations. However, these concepts should be embedded in broader processes at various scales – from the ideologies of neoliberal self-sufficiency, management and workplace management to global processes of ageing. In terms of policy, the chapter highlights the challenges and opportunities of more inclusive, gender-aware work schedules and workspaces. It also explores nascent policies and activism related to the recognition of menopausing as a significant process that concerns more than half of the people who have reached midlife and beyond.
This chapter sets the agenda for long-overdue research on the geographies of menopausing. The long process of hormonal change that can have a marked impact on how people use time and space, and relate to each other, the chapter argues, is a highly pertinent issue to which geographers can contribute. By analysing how the contradictory term ‘menopause’ was invented in the medical field, the chapter illuminates awkward temporalities dictated by medical science vocabulary and symptomology, which control women and gender-diverse people as they age. The chapter sheds light on how gendered geographies of power can make an important contribution to researching experiences of menopausing, develop a plurality of knowledge and standpoints, and delve deeper into economic geographies to critically examine hormone treatment supply chains.
Setting the scene for the book, this chapter establishes an argument about midlife spaces and times as relational and embodied. It begins with reflections on the author’s positionality and radical openness to subjective ways in which midlife is experienced. The chapter also presents key approaches relevant to the subsequent chapters, outlining the argument for the importance of narratives that shape midlife spaces, temporalities and experiences. Furthermore, the chapter justifies how midlife relates to broader processes and attitudes towards ageing, particularly in relation to midlife transitions, body changes and work. The chapter introduces the relevance of menopausing as a significant social process with distinct geographies and concludes by alluding to relevant political aspects related to midlife in work and care relations.
In the 21st century, global demographics are rapidly changing, with a higher population of middle-aged people than ever before. As the ‘sandwich’ generation, people in midlife often experience significant work and intergenerational caring responsibilities, yet they are the subject of relatively little research.
This short, accessible book redresses the balance in offering a geographical approach to how people embody and claim space in midlife while analysing the influences of gender, class and location. The author considers midlife in varying socio-cultural and geographical contexts, viewed through the lens of the global neoliberal shift.
This chapter explores the notion of lifecourse transitions and theorizes opportunities and challenges that current lifecourse research presents in relation to midlife. Specifically, it delves into the transitions experienced in the body and in working life. The author argues that transitions are not clear-cut; rather, changes at work, embodied transformations and dynamic situations of care can be better understood if we place these changes within larger processes. At the micro scale, relationships in families and with other relevant people contribute to midlife changes to a great extent. However, they cannot be separated from processes at the macro scale, such as the political economy within which people live and work. The chapter uses original data from the author’s research with middle-aged people who migrate between Latvia, the UK and the Nordic countries and non-migrants in Latvia.
Drawing on original research with middle-aged people in Latvia, the UK and the Nordic countries, this chapter puts forward novel ways of analysing home and relationships as fundamental and highly complex processes in midlife. Particular attention is given in this chapter to how home spaces, places and temporalities construct specific experiences and relationships within families and broader communities. The research explores phenomena of home ownership and societal expectations of what a good life is in midlife, vulnerabilities related to renting in the middle years of the lifecourse, and inheritance as a specific and typical event that shapes relationships and the ways people live. The chapter provides a novel analysis of middle-aged migrants and their motivations to establish a home.
The chapter analyses the key ways in which midlife is narrated in the popular media, psychology, self-help, and feminist writings. By examining the main differences between such texts and the messages they convey, the chapter justifies the argument that we need to be aware of and knowledgeable about the ways we talk about midlife and gendered middle-aged bodies, as these frames shape perceptions and send messages that serve certain agendas and ideologies. Hence, the chapter sheds light on how self-help can result in individualism and psychologism: instead of claiming space outwards, the expectation is to turn inwards. In contrast, feminist writing provides new avenues for embracing the middle years with their turning points, questioning neoliberal impositions, claiming space and time, and looking forward to ageing.
In this chapter, the authors conclude with answers to a set of questions that can help people reflect on their philanthropy, and they outline the additional understanding that could be delivered by further research. They also provide a set of action steps, based on this research, that people who are contemplating their own philanthropic journeys can take.
In this chapter, the authors focus on a particular form of self, the essential or true self – that is, who philanthropists believe they truly are, were born to be or are meant to be. They first define what the essential self means, then explain how this essential self can be experienced, developed and expressed in the context of one’s philanthropy. They also explore how identity ceding can enhance these essential self-related processes and how the essential self is experienced in the five elements of self.
In this chapter, the authors take the discussion of people’s sense of self to the next level and describe a particular self-transformation process that can provide a rich source of meaning for an individual’s philanthropy: identity ceding. Identity ceding is defined as a psychological process through which people willingly allow their sense of self to be transformed in order to achieve the goals they share with a community. Identity ceding can be experienced in five different elements of self: the agentic self; the object self; the experiential self; the represented self; and the meta-self. The authors define these terms and explain how they link together to provide a holistic sense of self. This chapter is by far the most conceptually challenging of all chapters in this book. It is also where the central thesis of the book begins to emerge. The authors describe the pivotal connection between what people do in their philanthropy, who they are as a person and how they relate to the community in which their philanthropy is grounded.
