Life Cycle Explanation Research Articles

Life cycle theory and the impact of the rate of economic growth on saving

The life cycle explanation of the positive impact of a country's rate of economic growth on its saving ratio appears questionable: its two premises, that the retirees' share of total income declines and that, consequently, income shifts from dissavers to savers, are found wanting.

Marital Quality of Black and White Adults Over the Life Course

This paper tests family development and life-course perspectives in explaining marital quality over the course of marriage for black and white adults. The sample of 1430 adults (1097 white, 333 black) in their first marriage was from a 1986 national survey. As expected, positive marital quality (satisfaction and interdependence) had significant curvilinear patterns across length of marriage but only satisfaction showed the characteristic U-shape with a dip in the middle years which is consistent with a family life-cycle explanation. Furthermore, family structure variables did not eliminate this pattern, although family financial factors reduced it to marginal significance. Negative marital quality (discord and spouse negative behavior) had significant negative linear patterns over the marital life course, which were unaffected by family life-cycle variables. All four patterns were similar for blacks and whites, except that blacks had a stronger negative linear association between negative marital quality and marriage length. Marital quality was significantly lower among blacks on all measures; kin relation and status inequality variables did not eliminate this difference. The results suggest that marital quality is better explained by a life-course perspective than by the family development model.

Group Differences in Early Support for Military Action in the Gulf

The article reports significant group differences in early support for military action in the Persian Gulf. Although the literature has reported mixed results on gender differences in foreign policy, the authors find a large and consistent gender gap that withstands controls for demographic and political variables. They also find significant racial and ethnic differences, with blacks, Hispanics, Arab-Americans, and Jews all less supportive of military action than whites. The racial gap widened when President Bush vetoed the civil rights bill, suggesting that domestic political events can affect foreign policy attitudes. Finally, they find significant generational differences, but these differences are almost exactly the opposite of those generally predicted by generational theories of foreign policy attitudes. The Vietnam generation and the Cold War generation were the most supportive, whereas the World War II and Reagan-Bush generations were substantially less supportive. These results hint at a life-cycle explanation of foreign policy attitudes.

Religious Change and Secularization: The Transmission of Religious Values in Australia

More individuals currently eschew a religion than at any time in this century. In Australia, more than one in ten do not have a religious affiliation. Three explanations have been put forward to account for this trend toward secularization: (1) continued socioeconomic development and a consequent undermining of religious explanations; (2) life cycle effects and the differing approaches to it; and (3) generational change. This paper systematically tests these three explanations by applying multivariate analysis to survey data collected in 1979. The results show that the socioeconomic development and life cycle explanations have significant, though limited, validity. By contrast, much of the trend towards secularization can be accounted for by generational change and, more specifically, to different religious socialization across generations. The findings also suggest that the growth in the proportion with no religion has been substantially at the expense of Anglicans, rather than Catholics. This emphasizes the argument that when the social climate is unfavorable to religion, groups which demand more commitment from their adherents fare better than those that demand less commitment.

Why Is Japan's Saving Rate So Apparently High?

This article begins with a look at time-series data on aggregate saving for the United States and Japan. After showing that a resolution of conceptual differences substantially narrows the gap in the saving rates between the two countries, the article examines various explanations for Japan's high saving rate by confronting them with a wealth of tabulations from household surveys in Japan. The life-cycle explanation is found to be inadequate. The prevalence of the extended family and bequests are singled out as probably the most important factor contributing to higher saving. An attempt is made to estimate the flow of intergenerational transfers. It is argued at the end that Japan's recent large trade surplus is due more to her slumping investment than any increase in saving.

Why Is Japan's Saving Rate So Apparently High?

This article begins with a look at time-series data on aggregate saving for the United States and Japan. After showing that a resolution of conceptual differences substantially narrows the gap in the saving rates between the two countries, the article examines various explanations for Japan's high saving rate by confronting them with a wealth of tabulations from household surveys in Japan. The life-cycle explanation is found to be inadequate. The prevalence of the extended family and bequests are singled out as probably the most important factor contributing to higher saving. An attempt is made to estimate the flow of intergenerational transfers. It is argued at the end that Japan's recent large trade surplus is due more to her slumping investment than any increase in saving.

Materialism in Japan Reconsidered: Toward a Synthesis of Generational and Life-Cycle Explanations

In two recent articles, Inglehart (1981, 1982) arrives at the conclusion that the decline of materialism in postwar Japan is the result of generational change and period effects. Aging effects cannot be demonstrated empirically. This article challenges his views. It will be shown that a life-cycle explanation can claim as much empirical evidence as a generational explanation, as long as the overall goodness of fit and the sign and strength of the age effects and cohort effects are the only criteria the decision is based upon. Particularly, a two-dimensional age-period model fits the data nearly as well as the cohort-period model that Inglehart proposes. Theoretical considerations, however, plead for a three-dimensional solution that includes some cohort effects beside period and aging effects for those generations that grew up in the postwar era. Such a model can also be established empirically.

The Early Years in the Life Cycle of City Councils: a Downsian Analysis

Anthony Downs argues that most government bureaus follow an eight stage developmental life cycle including such steps as: (1) birth of the agency, (2) early dominance by 'advocates' or 'zealots', (3) a struggle for autonomy followed by (4) a struggle for support, (5) rapid growth, and (6) a 'decelerator effect' ending in (7) a 'crisis of continuity' and rarely — (8) death. The present article applies Downs' life cycle explanation of bureaucratic agency behaviour to an elected public body and argues that elected bodies exhibit characteristics similar to nonelected and long-term bureaucratic organisations.

Job Satisfaction and Age: A Test of Two Views

Previous impressionistic treatments of the sources of worker satisfaction have identified a stable, positive relationship between job satisfaction and age. But the current wisdom about this relationship remains largely at the level of zero-order associations and post-hoc explanations. Examining a national probability sample of 1,455 American workers drawn from the 1973 Quality of Employment Survey this research tests tzwo explanations commonly found in this literature: (1) that the relationship between age and satisfaction is the result of generational differences in education and value systems (i.e., a cohort explanation) and (2) that this relationship is simply a function of older workers having moved into better jobs across their careers (i.e., a life cycle explanation). Analyses of covariance suggest that neither explanation is adequate, leaving the question of what accounts for higher levels of satisfaction of older workers unresolved. Explanations for these findings and suggestions for further research are offered. Although there have been many studies of job satisfaction in recent years, findings have often been contradictory (Bockman), or marred by methodological problems (Kalleberg, a), and theoretical weaknesses. In this research we investigate the relationship between job satisfaction and age, one of the least explored theoretical issues in this literature. While detailed analyses of age and job satisfaction are scarce, incidental references are common. These range from the anecdotal observa

LIFE CYCLE MODEL OF PARTISANSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Phillip Converse's life cycle explanation of partisan strengthening implies there should have been an abrupt and relatively durable increase in the level of aggregate instability in the electorate following the enfranchisement of women in 1920. Using a technique originally developed by William Flanigan and Nancy Zingale (1974), state-level instability data and county-level instability data for Colorado were examined. These data reveal no abrupt and enduring increase in instability following the enfranchisement of women.

Developing Party Identification: A Further Examination of Life-Cycle, Generational, and Period Effects

Recent analyses demonstrate that the partisan loyalties of birth cohorts have not increased over the full course of more than two decades, and these findings have been used to support a generational explanation for the weak party loyalties of young Americans. Philip E. Converse (1976) argues that partisan strength did increase with age between 1952 and 1964, which he views as a steady-state period in the development of party identification. Converse argues that there is considerable evidence for a life-cycle explanation during this period. Converse's support for the life-cycle explanation is a good deal weaker than he claims. By including blacks in his analysis, Converse mixed period effects with life-cycle effects. An analysis of the white electorate replicating Converse's techniques shows little gain in partisan strength among young whites during the 1952-1964 period, while an analysis including blacks suggests that Converse's inability to control for race led him to overestimate the presence of life-cycle effects. In addition, an analysis including results from the 1976 election survey conducted by the Center for Political Studies of the University of Michigan demonstrates that there is little support for the life-cycle thesis if one examines the entire 24-year period for which appropriate data are now available.