Home - Precarity and Aging

What is
Precarity?

a) A right, tenancy, held or enjoyed by the favour of and at the pleasure of another person;

b) Vulnerable to the will or decision of others. Including being dependent on chance or circumstance; uncertain; liable to fail; exposed to risk, hazardous; insecure or unstable.

Welcome to the
Precarity & Aging
project

*Oxford English Dictionary, 2017

Read our recent
publications & findings

a) Precarity can occur in multiple life domains, including employment, family, education, physical and mental health, and leisure.

b) People can experience precarity in multiple domains simultaneously.

c) Precarity in one domain can interact with or spill over into others; or be reduced/offset by the strength or stability of other domains.

Precarity in
Multiple Domains

*Grenier, Phillipson, & Settersten (Eds) (2020), Precarity and ageing: Understanding insecurity and risk in later life, Policy Press, p. 21

Concept of Precarity

“The concept of precarity refers to insecurities in the context of global economic and social change, including unwanted risks and the costly hazards of contemporary life that result from globalization, neoliberalization, and declining social protection.”

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*Grenier and Phillipson (2018), The Hastings Center Report, 48(S3), p. S15

About The Precarity and Aging Project

The research results reported on this website were developed as part of an Insight grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The project, entitled “Precarity and Aging: Unequal Experiences in Contemporary Late Life” (Grenier, PI, 2016-2023) aimed to understand and account for trajectories of risk and insecurity in relation to contemporary aging, expected life course transitions and dominant success-based models of aging in Canada. This project considered precarity in relation to aging and late life and explored trajectories of low income, (dis)ability, im/migration and later life. Our team bridged conceptual work on vulnerability, risk and exclusion with stakeholder interviews and policy analysis. Building on these we identified challenges and gaps, and made research-based suggestions to improve the lives of older people.

Research Methods

The following methods were used to understand aging and precarity:

In-person site visits and interviews (cancelled due to COVID-19)
Conceptual scoping reviews on precarious aging (disability, risk, migration status)
Analysis of policy documents, statistics and administrative data
In depth stakeholder interviews with community service providers
Policy review and content analysis of documents

For a list of project outputs and publications please click here for the Project CV.

Feel free to reach out if you are having trouble locating an article.

Key Findings

“Our suggestion is that precarity offers a complementary and interdisciplinary lens to understand inequality by building on existing models such as cumulative advantage and disadvantage, the social determinants of health, and/or social exclusion, while at the same time incorporating insights from older people.”

*Grenier et al. (2019), The Gerontologist, 60(8), p. 629

Research Team

Profressor Amanda Grenier

Principal Investigator

Norman and Honey Schipper Chair in Gerontological Social Work at the University of Toronto Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and Baycrest Hospital