Even the way we go through the various stages of our lives has undergone surprising changes, notes health sciences professor Richard A. Settersten Jr. Once upon a time, we went to school, went to work, got married, retired, and died. Now, many of these life stages have been customized to suit individual aspirations, sometimes leaving people without the social safety nets that protected them when things didn't work out. Settersten argues that the policies governing these social safety nets, such as Social Security, need to be reexamined, as they are often based on how old people are rather than their actual life circumstances. See "Shake-Ups in the Life Course."