1. Spini et al.

(2017): a Life Course Framework for studying vulnerability -

file:///C:/Users/hayle/AppData/Local/Temp/Temp1_Lecture%20slides%20amp%3B%20readings-
20220922.zip/Spini_etal_2017%20Toward%20a%20Life%20Course%20Framework%20for
%20Studying%20Vulnerability.pdf
 
Vulnerability as an emerging concept in Social and Psychological Sciences
 Expansion of the word "vulnerability" in 2000s
 
Twin Concepts: Vulnerability and Resilience (Overton, 2013)
 
Vulnerability connection with childhood and youth
(Berzin, 2010; Frankenberg, Robinson, & Delahooke, 2000)
 
Vulnerability and Social inequalities and Exclusion
 Robert Castel (1991, 1995) described vulnerability based on its economic (integration–
exclusion) and social (insertion–isolation) conditions
 Vulnerable = people in need of protection and care with limited access to a set of resources
and opportunities, such as refugees, the unemployed, or individuals with disability or illness
(Misztal, 2011)
 
Concept of Vulnerability
 Vulnerability stress
 Diathesis stress models
 Interaction between vulnerability and psychopathology - stress from life and
depression/mood disorders (Ingram & Luxton, 2005)
 
(Ingram & Vulnerability is defined as a predispositional factor or set of factors that
Luxton, 2005) favors disordered states, notably genetic, biochemical (i.e., relating to the
serotonin system or cortisol), or psychological factors (i.e., personality
traits).
 
 These factors can be conceived as traits that are endogenous to
the individual, relatively stable, and latent
 
DEFINING VULNERABILITY
 AS A DYNAMIC INVOLVING STRESS AND RESOURCES OVER THE LIFE COURSE: TOWARD A
UNIFIED FRAMEWORK
 
Vulnerability is a versatile concept:
 Different meanings in different disciplinary fields: poverty, isolation, depression,
lack of coping resources
 
Define vulnerability An abstract concept - dynamic
Vulnerability is inherently implying changes in risk exposure, the level and range of
dynamic available resources, and the compensatory actions
undertaken.
Vulnerability = life-course Therefore, vulnerability should not be seen as a precise
process outcome but rather as a life-course process
 
 Vulnerability = Weakening lack of resources in one or more life domains that, in
process specific contexts, exposes individuals or groups to
(Spini, Hanappi, Bernardi, Oris, & (1) negative consequences related to sources of stress,
Bickel, 2013, p. 19) (2) an inability to cope effectively with stressors
(3) an inability to recover from stressors or to take
advantage of opportunities by a given deadline
 
(Hanappi et al., 2015) Dynamic of stress and resources offers a heuristic
framework for describing the complexities of human
existence situated at the crossroads of different
disciplinary perspectives
Stress Process Model distinguishes between sources of stress, mediators of
Pearlin et al. (1981) and Pearlin stress, and manifestations of stress.
(1989)
 
Stress
Stress and Vulnerability  concepts are very closely related,
Defining Stress individuals attribute to past, present, or future
(Heckhausen, 1999; Lazarus & experiences or events, and to their own resources to cope
Folkman, 1984). with these
events, are inherent components of stress
   strongly associated with depression
 
Vulnerability - dynamic life-course framework
  (1) The diffusion of stress and the mobilization of
resources is multidimensional: it occurs across life
domains;
 
(2) it is multilevel: it occurs through the articulation of
explanations and analyses from the micro- to the
macrolevels and notably between the individual, group,
and collective levels (van der Maesen & Walker, 2005);
and
 
(3) it is multidirectional: it is by definition dynamic and
develops over time
over the life course.
 
Multilevel Dynamics of Stress and Resources
Multilevel perspective
o three levels of analysis: person, group, and collective.
o Attention to concept of vulnerability as risk being exposed to hazards (floods, earthquakes) -
geographical
 
Watts and Bohle (1993) Vulnerability and Risks:
(1) the risk of being exposed to external hazards and shocks,
 (2) the risk of having inadequate capabilities to mobilize resources to respond to hazards, (3)
the risk of suffering from severe consequences of shock, hazards, and stress.
o Risks related to environment and individuals and how they cope with risks
 
Social and Historical Contexts
Elder first described the linked lives principle (Elder, 1974/1999),
o which states that an individual’s life trajectory is linked to the life trajectories of others with
whom the individual is connected, notably within families (Levy & Bühlmann, 2016).
o vulnerability is inseparable from the larger social and economic contexts in which people live
o dynamics of vulnerability should therefore be understood from a systemic perspective at
different nested levels of organization, from microsystems to macrosystems
 
Person Level - Vulnerability Stress Model
 individual and psychological resource levels, personality traits are directly related to an
individual’s vulnerability across his or her life course.
 Personality traits studied using 'Big Five'; life-long resource
 
Group Level - Social Relationships and Groups = important
 Buffers against overabundant stressors
 Social networks, social integration, social influence, social learning, social support, family
configurations, and social capital (Berkman & Glass, 2000; Widmer, 2010).
 Personal networks have been shown to serve as a resource for resilience, whereas social
isolation is harmful (Berkman, 1985).
 
The Collective Level
 Analysing the dynamics of resources and stress across the life course.
 Hedström and Ylikoski (2010, pp. 58–59) distinguish four properties of collective
phenomena:
o (1) typical actions, beliefs, or desires among the members of society or a collective,
which can be conceived as statistical or descriptive norms;
o (2) distributions and aggregate patterns such as spatial distributions and inequalities;
o (3) topologies of networks that describe relationships between members of a
collective, a property that we have located and detailed at the intermediate level of
groups (not considered in the model of Hedström and Swedberg)
o (4) informal rules or social (or prescriptive) norms that constrain the actions of the
members of a collective.
 
 Levy (2013) defines two large families of institutionalization related processes at the
collective level that have power over an individual’s life course: institutional versus cultural.
 The first category institutionalizes the life course through the creation and functioning of
organizations that control processes with the intention to stabilize them, whereas the
second establishes binding social norms and values.
 
 At the institutional level of stress and resources, the availability and accessibility of services
is crucial for providing resources or, in their absence, for accentuating stress.
 For example, day-care facilities and home services for children are crucial in employment
policies and for women who provide the majority of care and for families who are low
income (Abrassart & Bonoli, 2015).
 Migration and educational policies serve as other ways to define labor supply and are
important factors related to the expansion of low-income jobs and to the reduction of
resident low-educated workers in European countries, respectively (Oesch, 2014).
  
 At the cultural level, we must also mention collective values and norms in their contexts.
 The effects of shared social norms, values, and normative climates on vulnerability processes
are crucial.
 Eicher et al. (2015) have studied the effects of normative climates by examining attitudes
toward voluntary childlessness and toward working full-time while children are young. They
found that in doing so, we move beyond individual factors and show that normative societal
climates (shared perceptions of others’ attitudes) have strong effects on these non-
traditional life choices that exceeds the effects of differences in individual values or of state
differences in social policies
 
 Morselli (2016) examined the effects of shared emotional contexts on individual levels of
hopelessness (vulnerability).
 factors such as personality and life events do have an effect, but that these effects
accumulate with collective effects (at the regional level), socioeconomic conditions (notably
average unemployment rates), and emotional contexts according to various collective
indicators of positive (energy and life satisfaction) and negative (depressive symptoms)
emotional climates.
 These results indicate that individual levels of hopelessness are related to socioeconomic
factors and to collective emotional climates, and that this level of analysis is distinct from the
individual level.
 
Dynamics of Stress and Resources overtime
 life-course research: concept of a birth cohort to link the dynamics of individual lives and
social changes
 Longitudinal studies - but has been costly and not all participants reach retirement stage
 
Mannheim (1952): how people born in the same year(s) who progress through history together can
form a collective identity and shared norms.
 macro–micro linkage, because a shared historical event can have an important or negligible
impact on a cohort’s life courses depending on the timing of the event for the members of a
given cohort (see Oris et al., this issue).
 Reciprocally, individuals are also actors of historical and social change (Marshall & Clarke,
2010).
 
Studying long-term vulnerability
 Using Retrospective longitudinal data: life history, life calendar
 
 Longitudinal data used from two main perspectives as far as time is concerned: to
look at the structure of lives and to study outcomes in later life, including situations of
Vulnerability
 
Shanahan (2000) and Macmillan (2005)
o Use of event-history analytical methods as a tool on the basis of theoretically driven
hypotheses
 
Gabadinho & Ritschard, (2013)
o identification of atypical life-course patterns are a promising venue for studying the
dynamics of vulnerability
 
 
Conclusion
1. Vulnerability is a USEFUL concept
 To analyse complexity of human life development from pluri-disciplinary perspective
 
2. A life-course definition of vulnerability as dynamics of stress and resources across the life
course
a. Dynamics of stress and resources over the life course distinguish three phases of
vulnerability: before, during, and after life-course stressors or life-challenging
transitions
b. Advantages of this definition: vulnerability is defined as abstract - can be applied to
depression, frailty, and social exclusion studies.
 
3. Analytical and interpretative framework for vulnerability articulates linear causal models
with dynamic and systemic models along three axes: multidimensional, multilevel, and
multidirectional.