Four - Midlife Transitions: Home and Relationships

Summary

Introduction

In this chapter, I analyse two key processes that unfold in midlife and are specifically shaped by midlife, namely processes related to home and relationships. Key literatures emphasize the latter but not the former. Due to my engagement with migrants in my research, the relevance of home is immediately obvious. This was one of the central processes, if not the key process, in the lives of most of the research participants.

Since Latvians who are currently middle aged have experienced dramatic changes in the economy and property regimes, the broader structural factors related to the historical period they have lived through are highly relevant to understanding their individual experiences of home. During the Soviet period – that is, from 1945 until 1991 – private property was restricted: few people owned houses and even those who did needed to privatize and re- register their properties after the Soviet Union collapsed. Denationalization and privatization shaped home ownership and changed lives in what we could see as class processes, following Western theories (Lulle 2023). Denationalization means that previous owners or their ancestors could reclaim real estate and land owned before the Second World War and the Soviet occupation. This process led to significant changes in living conditions for most people: owners gained important capital, even if the houses they got back were dilapidated and required significant renovation. Others became tenants and were subject to radical change in rental prices, which meant that many could not afford rents or that they had to leave denationalized properties. Privatization certificates were issued, based on how long people had worked under Soviet rule and on their age (that is, certificates were lifecourse related). All participants in my research on midlife were children or teenagers when these processes took place. Hence, their positioning in terms of property ownership or rental was shaped by these political and economic changes along with, for some, opportunities to inherit a house or a flat in midlife. Therefore, not only work but also, crucially, home ownership arrangements contributed towards security or precarity for this generation (Grenier et al 2020).