Generational Overlap: Changing Demography and Shared Lifetimes

Dr. Marcy Carlson

This talk will consider how changing demographic patterns (especially declining/delayed fertility and longer life expectancies) shape the prevalence of generational overlap, especially for children and grandparents. Generational overlap in the form of shared lifetimes represents a fundamental condition guiding whether and how kin relationships across generations may develop and how resources may be shared – with notable variation by socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and family complexity. 

Marcia (Marcy) J. Carlson is the Sewell-Bascom Professor of Sociology, and Associate Dean of Graduate Education, at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her primary research interests center on the links between family contexts and the wellbeing of children and parents, with attention to inequality and public policy. She served from 2016-2021 as Director of UW’s Center for Demography and Ecology, and in 2021, she was Vice President of the Population Association of America. Her research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and several private foundations. She is currently co-PI of NextGenPop, a program focused on recruiting the next generation of scholars into population research.