The experiences of older people and those with disabilities are commonly understood to unfold through patterns, events, and transitions throughout the life course. Lives are also seen as progressing against a backdrop of age-based markers, social relations, institutional boundaries, and cultural expectations. Heavily influenced by structural functionalist thinking, the standard model of the life course views individuals as moving through normative stages in a relatively linear manner, with certain events occurring at predictable times, such as childhood, adulthood, and later life (see Hockey and James 2003).

Grenier, A., Griffin, M., McGrath, C. (2020). Aging and disability: The paradoxical positions of the chronological life course. In K. Aubrecht, C. Kelly, C. Rice (Eds.), The aging-disability nexus (pp. 21–34). UBC Press.