Born at the right time?: gendered generations and webs of entitlement and responsibility

Journal ArticleAnalyses of social change and challenge in sociologies for women often start with some attention to generation. Yet, generation per se has been an underconceptualized sociological construct as a structural dimension of stratification, particularly gender stratification, or as a lens through which we see social change. The concept of gendered generation, the ways in which women are positioned and position themselves in political and social struggles and everyday lives in family and work by age and gender together, has been largely untheorized and underexplored. The focus in this paper, is on gendered intergenerational relations which lie at the heart of extensions in life expectancy and rapid social, economic, political and technological changes and permits a new perspective on life course changes, on women's movements, on generational interrelations among women, and on the construction of socially situated identities over time. What is known about gendered intergenerational relations, from data and research, is surprisingly little. Generation and gender have each emerged as social categories and identity signifiers, which shape public debate as well as social cohesion and public policy. This paper, part of a larger project on intergenerational interconnections, brings together existing data and research on gendered intergenerational relations, develops a conceptual framework for analysing gendered generations, and suggests questions, including new avenues of research, that remain to be asked