Relative prospects of children as they age: Canadians and Americans in midlife in the great recession frame future generations

Studies of intergenerational relations in aging and changing families often focus on the present, how generations interact, relate or depend on each other in families. Less often is the focus on the prospective, on projected perceptions of life course prospects for future generations as they age. In this paper, part of a large multi-method project, we adopt this focus. We rely on interviews conducted in 2013 with midlife respondents in two socioeconomic classes in comparable cities in the United States and Canada, We specifically explore whether and how Canadians and Americans in midlife discuss life course prospects for their children (or younger relatives) in ways that map onto wider discursive frames of aging. Through a combined discourse and frame analysis of our interview data, we find that frames of “The Dream” and “Intergenerational Contract” construct and reflect competing models of intergenerational shifts in life course spaces as well as suggest intergenerational changes in mobility and opportunities.