Jyotsana Parajuli
GTY 702
Reflective Paper-1
Cumulative Advantage/Disadvantage Theory
The number of older adults is increasingly rapidly in the United States with the graying of baby boomers and increasing is the longevity. Moreover, the population of older adults today is the most diverse in the history of the United States. This diversity has contributed to socio-economic inequalities and health disparities among older adults. Some people are advantaged early on in life and remain advantaged throughout their life course ending up with better health and socio-economic condition in their later life; however, those who begin with disadvantages early on in life accumulate disadvantages over the life course and hence result in low socio-economic
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The cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory will helps us understand the phenomenon. Furthermore, cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory has connections with age because both are related to the passage of time. These connections have led to the further exploration, elaboration and application of the cumulative advantage/disadvantage perspective in social gerontology, in relation to issues of heterogeneity and inequality since past few decades. However, the origins, connections, and implications of cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory are still not widely understood. Therefore, this paper will make an attempt to illustrate the origin, development and …show more content…
This theory is most extensively used by social science researchers who are interested in examining life course patterns or life course perspective. Even though the Matthew effect (the core phenomena of cumulative advantage/disadvantage theory) is widely used by social science researchers in examining life course patterns and apply it to trajectories of advantages and disadvantages over long periods of time, some scholars disagree with the Matthew Effect. For example, Rigney (2013) critiques the Matthew Effect and mentions that although Matthew Effect commonly exists in our society in many domains of our life, it is a much complex phenomenon when observed meticulously. He argues that Matthew effect does not apply necessarily in all spheres of life or hold true in all circumstances, because practically it is not always necessary that the rich people get richer and poor people get poorer. In certain circumstances both the rich people and the poor people get richer, sometimes both the rich people and the poor people both get poorer (for example in the time of recession) and rarely the rich people get poorer while the poor people grow richer (Rigney, 2013). Therefore, he further argues that advantages early in life does not necessarily lead to further advantages and disadvantages early in life does not always lead to further disadvantage. Matthew effect explores the