Aging Societies In Turbulent Times: Care, Loss, and Life-Course Inequality across Cultures

Population aging is transforming family life, care responsibilities, and health inequalities across societies. In turbulent times marked by demographic change, migration, economic insecurity, health crises, and shifting welfare systems, individuals and families are increasingly called upon to navigate aging, illness, disability, dependency, and loss. Critically, these experiences are unevenly distributed, profoundly shaped by gender, race/ethnicity, immigration status, socioeconomic position, family structure, cultural expectations, and policy contexts.

This open session invites papers that examine care, loss, and inequality across the life course and across diverse cultural settings. We welcome studies on family caregiving, widowhood, bereavement, disability, cognitive decline, end-of-life care, later-life planning, and intergenerational support. Papers may address questions such as: Who becomes a caregiver, and at what point in the life course? How do caregiving and loss affect health, employment, family relationships, and well-being? How do social inequalities shape exposure to care responsibilities, vulnerability to loss, and access to support? How do cultural norms, family obligations, communities, welfare states, and health care systems organize responsibility for aging and dependency?

We especially welcome research that connects individual and family experiences with broader social, cultural, and institutional contexts, through either comparative or single-country studies. By placing care and loss at the center of aging research, this session seeks to advance the global sociology of aging and deepen our understanding of how aging societies reproduce, transform, or mitigate life-course inequalities.