Blurring the Boundaries' core argument is sensible and important. The extent to which individuals' lives in Western societies are constrained by norms related to one's chronological age has declined significantly in the past half century. In the middle of the 20th century, the transition to adulthood was orchestrated with practically military co-ordination as the vast majority of people left school, got married and had 2.5 children at the same ages. At the other end of the lifecycle, employer and public policy imposed a mandatory retirement regime that saw the vast majority of male workers leave the labour force during a small window in their mid-sixties.

The regimentation of the transitions from childhood to adulthood and to old age gave way quite suddenly during the 1970s, as a new organisation of the lifecourse – one less tied to chronological age – took hold. Individuals stayed in school longer or alternated between work and schooling. After a generation that seemed in a hurry to marry and have many children, succeeding age cohorts took their time. They were more likely to cohabit before marrying. Where a woman over 30 might have been considered ‘too old’ to have children in the 1950s, by the end of the 20th century, birth rates among women in their late thirties and early forties had risen even as those among younger women fell.

Among older adults, the shifts were even more profound. At least in the United States of America (USA), the mandatory retirement regime of the early post-war years was more stick than carrot. Poverty rates among older adults remained high, Social Security payments quite low and a large proportion of older adults were likely to spend a part of their later years living with one of their children, an indicator more of economic distress than fealty. The combination of large increases in public pensions and the end of mandatory retirement policies allowed older adults to take their time leaving the labour force.

These profound changes had many causes, but we can start with the Bill Clinton campaign mantra: ‘It's the economy, stupid.’ After a generation of Depression and war, those coming of age immediately after World War II faced an unusual combination of market- and public policy-driven economic opportunity. The ability to earn a decent living, the expansion of subsidised college educational opportunities and the availability (at least in the USA) of an expanding suburban housing supply were benefits that the previous generation could only dream (and perhaps did dream) about. As that economic reality diminished after 1973, the early post-war sprint to adulthood became more of a marathon. At the other end of the lifecycle, the economic slow-down pushed different people in different directions. Many manual workers found themselves forced out of the labour force in their fifties while others – doubting the adequacy of their private (or privatised) retirement income, stayed in the labour force into their seventies.

This is not the book's argument. Rather, the author explains the decline of ‘age-related norms’ as ‘embedded in a much broader perspective’ in which ‘informal norms generally have diminished in their influence’ (p. 2). Instead of changing economic prospects, the author focuses on ‘first-wave baby boomers’ and the culture of the 1960s as the causes of these changes. As a result, the first two chapters of the book pay scant attention to changes in age norms and more attention to a variety of legal, social and cultural changes associated with that turbulent decade. Although the author acknowledges that much good came from the sixties, including the enactment of civil rights laws against discrimination based on race, gender and age, he is clearly exercised by what he sees as the negative side of the liberation movements of the era, including the tolerance of cheating, noise pollution, the public use of obscenities, free-style dancing, grade inflation, and the fact that some college professors wore their hair long, dressed in bell-bottoms and used hip language as a way to avoid being seen as part of the establishment.

In short, Levin wishes to frame the decline of age norms as a product of anomie or the breakdown of norms on individual behaviour, a concept associated with classical sociology. Of course, Durkheim used anomie to explain the social pathologies, like suicide, of modern societies. In spite of Levin's attention to the positive side of cultural change, we are left, as with Durkheim, with a suggestion of cultural decline.

In a sense, the real problem with Levin's argument is that he misunderstands what needs to be explained. Today's less-regimented norms around chronological age are consistent with patterns during much of the 19th and early 20th century. What needs to be explained is the unusual, and short-lived, pattern of the early post-war period. If the book had confined itself to its ostensible topic – shifts in the timing of life events – it would be more useful and informative. Instead, a scant 30 pages are devoted to this topic and the remainder of the book borders on becoming a jeremiad on the evils of contemporary culture.