Working Lives of Men Aged 45–60

Abstract

Analyses the working lives of the middle cohort (28 men aged 45–60) as were those from the old cohort: according to principal narratives identified in the men’s work histories. Four principal narratives found: care, travel, work as work, and social or political change. Three were similar to those from the old cohort and one new narrative, travel, helped explain the men’s work histories. Notable was the change in order: whereas work as work was the primary narrative for the old cohort, care was primary narrative for the middle cohort. There were two reasons: first, the baby boomer generation who comprised most of the middle cohort, were more at ease working in care occupations than the older cohort and benefited from an expansion of jobs in care occupations in the 1970s; secondly, many of those from the middle cohort were drawn to work in care roles during the HIV-AIDS pandemic in western countries. Travel and work was more important for them than for those from the other cohorts and a substantial number sought work in travel-related industries (airlines, shipping companies) or to combine work with travel opportunities (trade delegations, diplomacy, multi-nationals). Three men included accounts in their life stories of how sexuality affected their work life. One of the stories represented a harrowing account of ostracism by a small-town community in rural New Zealand, a story which could just as easily have come from another man’s experience in a rural town in Cumbria, New Mexico or Tasmania. The man survived and was reunited with his children when they became adults.