Understanding the Male Life Course: Opportunities for Gender Transformation

"Integrating a life course approach into programming for men and boys has the potential for far-reaching effects."

Mobilising men (and boys) as "partners" to address power relations represents an opportunity for gender-transformative interventions, because men can wield influence to change attitudes, norms, and behaviours regarding unequal gender norms. The challenge is how and when to engage men and boys in ways that secure sustainable social norm change for greater gender equality. To that end, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Passages Project developed a framework that conceptualises men's experiences, challenges, and opportunities across the life course. The goal is to provide a framework for understanding the unique issues men face throughout their lives and to identify opportunities for transforming gender-related norms that reinforce gender inequality and that harm both men and women.

The concept paper begins with a brief overview of the core concepts of life course theory (LCT). In short, LCT views individuals as embedded in a multi-layered social context. It conceptualises the life course as a dynamic, nonlinear process involving a series of age-related patterns of behaviour embedded in social institutions, personal experience, and social history in ways that give meaning to the passage of biological time. Elder et al. (2003) identify five key principles underpinning LCT:

1. Human development and change are lifelong processes (Principle of Life-Span Development).
2. Individuals have a role in determining the direction their lives take (Principle of Agency).
3. Individuals are shaped by the context in which they live (Principle of Time and Place).
4. The effect of specific events that shape behaviour depends on when they happen in people's life course (Principle of Timing).
5. People's lives are lived interdependently (Principle of Linked Lives).

The male life course is divided into three large segments: infancy and childhood; adolescence, including young and older adolescence as separate life course stages; and adulthood, which includes the life course stages of young, middle, and older adulthood.

A discussion follows that focuses on why the concept of masculinities matters for the life course approach. Social definitions of masculinities - e.g., norms enforcing a social system of male dominance - are enforced through a system of interlocking sanctions and rewards that act to constrain behaviour within the bounds of what is deemed to be socially acceptable. These sanctions and rewards lay the boundaries of the pathways most men will follow in their life course. In some contexts, these boundaries are looser than others, allowing greater flexibility in the range of behaviours that are considered masculine. In others, expectations are rigidly held, particularly within particular life course stages. In any case, hegemonic masculine norms can have adverse effects on the lives of men and boys throughout the life course. For example, research has found that unstable employment for men increases the likelihood of intimate partner violence, possibly as a result of men seeking to reassert their masculinity in the face of expectations around their role as providers. "In sum, a life course approach makes it possible to identify which norms of masculinity create barriers or facilitators throughout men's life course, especially to their engagement in building and supporting gender equality."

The paper then shows how the LCT as a framework applies to men and boys across five key thematic areas: livelihoods, employment, and economic activity; experiences with violence; relationships, family, and social responsibilities; health (physical, mental, and reproductive); and learning (education and social learning).

The next section highlights some programming implications for addressing the challenges of men and boys over a life course and identifying opportunities for gender transformation (see Table 1, pages 23-24). The patterns outlined here illustrate a number of critical points relevant to programmers and policymakers. For instance, men and boys face greater challenges between adolescence through early adulthood, rising rapidly in adolescence and peaking in later adolescence and early adulthood. Later adolescence, in particular, is marked by a confluence of structural and societal factors that make boys and young men particularly vulnerable. During this life stage, expectations for their behaviour shift rapidly in an environment over which they have only limited control and influence. Thus, intervening in the early adolescence life stage presents a programmatic opportunity for both young men and women.

Based on the five key principles of the LCT, the paper concludes by offering some takeaways for programming:

• Apply a lifelong perspective to programme design, implementation, and monitoring, instead of focusing only on the life stage your programme addresses.
• Remember that people have agency despite the social determinants that may influence their lives.
• Recognise that both social norms and structural factors matter for sustained change.
• Consider the effect of the timing of specific life events and how these may affect your population(s) of interest.
• Consider the importance of cumulative and longitudinal advantages and disadvantages within your population(s) of interest's lifespan and across generations.