Definition(s):

“Life stage: Super (1990) proposed five life stages (Growth, or childhood; Exploration, or adolescence; Establishment, or young adulthood; Maintenance, or middle adulthood; and Decline, or old age) through which individuals progress over their lives. Super (1990) also posits substages for stages. Two measures developed to assess an individual’s progress through these stages include the Career Adjustment and Development Inventory (CADI; Crites, 1982) and the Adult Career Concerns Inventory (ACCI; Super, Thompson, & Lindeman, 1988). Closely related to Super’s concept of career pattern” (Carson, n.d.)
Related: Family Life Cycle: The family life cycle in expressed in terms of biological stages: “1. The young adult, 2. Marriage, 3. Family with young children, 4. Family with adolescent children, 5. Launching children, and 6. ‘The family in later life.’” (McGoldrick & Carter, 1982.)
Related: Stages of a Man’s Life: Levinson’s model contains five main stages: the pre-adulthood stage (age 0 – 22), the early adulthood stage (age 17 – 45), the middle adult stage (age 40 – 65), the late adulthood stage (age 60 – 85), and the late late adult stage (age 80 plus.) “The shift from one era to the next is a massive developmental step and require a transitional period of several years.”(Levinson, 1978.) This model is discussed in relation to women in The Seasons of a Woman’s Life.

Carson, A.D. (Ed.) (n.d.) Dictionary. In Vocational psychology.com: Vocational psychology and career counseling resources. Retrieved August 17, 2005, from http://vocationalpsychology.com/ Reference for this quote: Super, D. E. (1990). Career choice and development (pp. 197-261). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. McGoldrick, M. & Carter, B. (1982). "The family life cycle." In Froma Walsh, (Ed.). Normal family processes. New York: Guilford Publications. Levinson, Daniel J. (1978). The seasons of a man’s life. New York: Knopf. Levinson, Daniel J. (1997). The seasons of a woman’s life. New York: Ballentine.