Call for Abstracts. Special Issue "Middle Age: Boundaries, Norms, and Inequalities"

The journal Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes announces a call for abstracts for a Special Issue "Middle Age: Boundaries, Norms, and Inequalities".

Guest editors of the Issue: Dr. Sci. (Soc.) Zhanna V. Chernova (Sociological Institute FSCTAS RAS), Cand. Sci. (Econ.) Svetlana S. Biryukova (HSE University, Analytical Center VCIOM).

In social research, middle age is often defined as a chronological interval, frequently by a so-called "residual" logic, encompassing the entire period between youth and old age — though its social boundaries are far less clear-cut than such a division might suggest. Perceptions regarding the onset and conclusion of middle age vary across social groups and historical contexts. Furthermore, an individual’s chronological age, their subjective age, and the age attributed to them by others may not necessarily align.

The boundaries of childhood, youth, and old age are largely established through institutional frameworks; consequently, these categories are often taken for granted, and the mechanisms behind their social production are rarely the focus of research. The blurred boundaries of middle age make these mechanisms more visible, which is why studying middle age offers a deeper understanding of the age order — a system of interconnected age-related positions, norms, perceptions, and institutional classifications that structure an individual’s life course and the distribution of social opportunities.

Furthermore, middle age is of particular interest for the analysis of social inequality. By middle age, the consequences of prior educational, professional, familial, and other life trajectories have accumulated, intensifying the observed disparities within a single cohort. At the same time, age itself influences access to resources, recognition, and life opportunities. Thus, middle age serves as a stage where inequalities — accrued both through the progression along one’s life course and as a result of age-based differentiation —manifest themselves clearly.

The objective of this Special Issue is to examine middle age as a social category, exploring its boundaries, the normative organization of biographical time, and the age-related mechanisms that generate social inequality.

For this Special Issue, the following questions are of particular importance:

• How are the social boundaries of middle age formed? Who defines its beginning and end, and on what grounds? How do these perceptions vary across social groups, change over time, and depend on cultural context? How do subjective age and the age attributed to an individual by others relate to the boundaries of this age category?
• How is biographical time organized during middle age? To what extent do rigid notions persist regarding the "appropriate" timing for education, career shifts, parenthood, the formation of partnerships, and other life transitions? For whom are age-related norms more binding — such that deviating from them requires justification — and what possibilities exist for revising one’s established biographical trajectory?
• What forms of inequality accumulate and manifest during middle age? How do prior educational, professional, and family trajectories correlate with disparities in income, employment, and life opportunities? How does the social significance of age vary according to gender, class, occupation, health status, place of residence, and other social positions?
• How is the image of middle age constructed in everyday life and public discourse? What norms concerning appearance, health, productivity, partnerships, and attitudes toward the future are associated with middle age, and how are these norms shaped through daily interactions, media, advertising, and expert or political discourse?
• How do research instruments themselves define the boundaries of middle age? How do the age intervals used in surveys and statistics influence analytical outcomes? How can chronological, subjective, and attributed age be distinguished and measured? How should the effects of age, cohort, and period be accounted for, and what insights can be gained from longitudinal studies (including panel studies) and qualitative research methods?
• What does the Russian context reveal about the structure of middle age? How have post-Soviet transformations — within the labor market, the family, social policy, and other institutions — influenced the boundaries and normative expectations associated with this stage of life? How does the experience of generations whose key transitions into adulthood took place under late-Soviet and post-Soviet social and institutional conditions differ, and how is this experience linked to perceptions of timeliness, life opportunities, and the future?

We accept studies based on quantitative or qualitative methods of sociological analysis using official statistics, population surveys, big data, materials of in-depth interviews, focus groups, or other information sources.

A mandatory requirement for articles is to justify the choice of the theoretical framework of the work, research methodology, and data sources.

Applications for the Special Issue are accepted by email (biryukova_s@wciom.com) until December 25, 2026. Please indicate the following subject when sending the letter: “Application for a Special Issue — Middle Age Research”. The application must include:

• Title of the article;
• Brief information about the authors (position and place of work, contact email);
• Abstract to the article of 300 to 600 words, containing the main purpose of the study and brief information about the theoretical framework of the work, research hypotheses, information about the methods used in the work and its empirical basis (data).

Applications are accepted in Russian or English.

The editors will consider various formats of applications, including classical research articles, literature reviews, and book reviews.

The deadline for making decisions on applications is January 25, 2027.

The deadline for preparing full-text articles for selected applications is March 25, 2027. Full texts for selected applications are accepted through the Journal website (https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/) and must meet the requirements for manuscripts described in the Author Guidelines section: https://www.monitoringjournal.ru/index.php/monitoring/about/submissions.

The planned publication date of the Special Issue is November — December 2027.