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Figure 2.1 portrays the essence of life-course CA/D processes but largely ignores the contexts in which upward and downward wealth mobility occurs. As systematic determinants of lifelong mobility and inequality identified through both economic and non-pecuniary measures (Dannefer 2003), CA/D processes are embedded in, and influenced by the interaction of, social, economic, and demographic forces that are external to the individual or household.

One example of such a context that fits with the life-cycle model of wealth trajectories is the age cohort effect—that is, the circumstances and consequences of being born within a particular time span. Being a member of a specific age cohort has implications for one’s life-cycle wealth accumulation. First, the size of the cohort demarcates one’s opportunities for mobility. The sheer size of the baby-boomer generation, for example, has created among its members a greater competition for education, employment, and housing, and this in turn has impacted the timing of marriage and childbearing, women’s labor force participation, and savings behavior (Keister and Deeb-Sossa 2001). Second, the availability of jobs, affordable housing, and credit varies over time and has important consequences for asset ownership and wealth accumulation. For example, research on immigrants’ economic mobility has shown that the timing of migration exposes immigrants to distinct opportunity structures in the labor and housing markets. Such structures are tied to the availability or absence of jobs, the price of housing in local markets, the accessibility of credit, and the relative burden of owning or renting a home (Myers and Lee 1998).

Age cohort effects are only one example used to demonstrate the importance of the differential social and economic contexts in which individuals belong as members of a particular demographic or social group. Social scientists are very much aware of the role that group membership plays in confining or enabling individual mobility during the life course. Drawing on Blau and Duncan’s (1967) status attainment model, Diprete and Eirich (2006) report that, unlike the strict CA model, racial differences in returns on socioeconomic resources reveal the interaction effects of the social group variable (in this case, race) with socioeconomic resources. In addition to inequality between individuals in the same group or within the entire population, Blau and Duncan’s (1967) model emphasizes group membership as a meso-level determinant of economic standing and racial inequality in the US. DiPrete and Eirich (2006) note that for Blau and Duncan racial inequality was viewed as a product of CA/D processes

because race had both direct and indirect effects on outcomes at different stages in the life course, and because highly educated blacks received lower status returns than did highly educated whites (an interaction effect that they referred to as “perverse” equality). (DiPrete and Eirich 2006: 273)

When more than one status category is involved in CA/D processes, inequalities can accumulate further. The terms “interaction effects” and “double” or “triple” disadvantage reflect attempts to describe, measure, and explain forms of CA/D related to both economic position and demographic categories—for instance race, ethnicity, religion, gender, nativity status, or age (see Chapter 5).